


Hookups And Hangups

by springandbysummerfall



Category: Dragonball Z
Genre: Comedy, Drama, F/M, Romance, Sexual Content, romcom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-12 10:13:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 131,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4475498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springandbysummerfall/pseuds/springandbysummerfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chi Chi and her boyfriend Goku have set their disaster of a friend Bulma up on a blind date, but Bulma and the mystery man can't utter a single nice word to each other. Even after they inadvertently wind up in bed together. A light hearted, irreverent jaunt through booty calls and repressed feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, new reader! This story has received a lot of attention on ffnet, so I guess I will go ahead and tack on an author's note and let any new readers know that this story uses a much more casual prose than some of my stories, and if that's not your thing, you might want to go ahead and hop off the wagon. This story is also not meant to reflect any DBZ characters accurately—that is to say, I exaggerate some qualities of each character and reimagine the rest, and if that's not your thing, let’s retouch on hopping off the wagon. I wrote this story for fun. The prose is wacky; the plot is silly. It is irreverent, it is juvenile, it touches sometimes on intimacy and relationships. At its worst, it's fan service. Enjoy!

Chi Chi groaned and gently tugged the last curler from her silky black hair before smothering it in a cloud of hairspray. "Bulma. Your expectations are too high. You are never going to find a man like that. Don't think of it like lowering your standards. Think of it like being effing REASONABLE!”

Bulma let out an unladylike snort as she haphazardly applied a bright shade of red lipstick to her pursed lips.

Chi Chi yanked it from her fingers. "Give me. You truly are terrible at being a girl. Flatten your lips.”

"If I have to be an old maid for the rest of my life while the rest of you are changing dirty diapers and complaining about your husband's man boobs, then I will," Bulma grumped as Chi Chi drew red stain over Bulma's parted lips, earning herself a little slap on the arm.

"Wow, Bulma. You are a piece of work, you know that," Chi Chi griped as she threw the lipstick back onto the vanity and sat on the bed to slip on her heels.

Chi Chi watched, beleaguered and amused from out of the corner of her eyes, as Bulma shot herself a few winks and thumbs-ups in her full length mirror before grabbing up her coat. Bulma didn't make it far, promptly falling on her back onto Chi Chi's bed with a big "hmph," blowing her hair out of her eyes as she stared at the ceiling.

"First brains. Then beauty." She put her counting fingers in Chi Chi's face. "Then class. That's all I'm asking for in a man.”

Chi Chi rolled her eyes and stood dismissively, adjusting her cleavage before throwing on her own knee-length wool coat.  
"What were your exact words? You want a man that is 'stunningly handsome, chivalrous—‘“

"Don't forget filthy rich.”

“—with a, what was it? Benevolent mouth, whatever that means," she griped, "and a 'sweet and whispering adoration’—oh my god, Bulma, what, did you fail poetry class?—a whispering adoration in the bedroom—“

"That rivals his success in the field of neuroscience and mechanical engineering. What? That's not too much to ask. Just because it's not your type of man, as evidenced by your goofball of a boyfriend—“

"Too far, Bulma, too far!" Chi Chi warned.

Bulma smiled and wrapped her scarf around her neck, leaning against the front door of the women's shared apartment. "I love Goku. He's great. Seriously, you guys are really good for each other," she gushed sincerely. Chi Chi looked touched, until Bulma continued. "Surprisingly. But really, you have my blessing.”

"Couldn't just leave it at the compliment, could you, Briefs," Chi Chi complained before bumping Bulma out of the way with her hip and jerking open the front door. "Goku is sweet, and talented, and amazing." Chi Chi swooned against the screen door as Bulma locked the wood door and pocketed the keys.

"Not to mention he makes the best wontons," Bulma added.

"Aw. Yeah," Chi Chi smiled wistfully, cheeks pinkening. "My Goku loves to eat. It makes sense he'd love to cook. But no. He leaves the cooking to me. Except the wontons, for whatever reason," she grouched.

"Oh, admit it, Cheech, you love taking care of him. Just like you love taking care of me," Bulma said brightly.

Chi Chi cut her a chagrined look. "It'd just be nice if someone cooked for me once in awhile.”

"Better you than me," Bulma responded dryly. "My dream man's going to make me breakfast and dinner every day, served with a little flower in a vase on the side. No cooking for me, no way.”

"That's because you couldn't fry an egg if your life depended on it.”

Bulma scoffed playfully. "Yeah, well, I could use a man who'd cook for me." She glanced away sheepishly. "The Thai Place down the street is starting to ask me how my mother's bunions are doing.”

"Why on earth are you talking about your personal life with them anyway?" Chi Chi balked.

"I'm lonely," Bulma responded with exaggerated heartache, clutching her friends arm and resting her head on her shoulder.

"That's why we're trying to get you to go out with us," Chi Chi cajoled.

"Oh, not this again.”

"Goku says he thinks you'll really like this guy!" Chi Chi gave her friend a pleading look that Bulma translated as 'You are absolutely pitiful.’

"Oh, whatever," Bulma snapped. "He just better be cute. And filthy rich. And extremely intelligent. Oh, and doting. He better be willing to rub my feet. In fact, I'm now making that a requirement for potential boyfriends. I expect it to be in bold on their resumes.”

"It's decreed!" Chi Chi exclaimed, giggling.

"For realsies. Or Goku owes me a carton of pad thai. And have him ask how Mai Lee's cousin is doing, you know, the one who gambled all his wife's savings away.”

"Oh, Bulma, you're sad.”

The women sauntered down the city street, the Saturday nightlife muffled by the din of traffic and a violet sky that threatened snow.

"Make sure he tells them to leave the vegetables out. I don't like vegetables.”

"Yeah, sure, Briefs," Chi Chi groused, sighing. "At this rate, you're never going to get a man."

* * *

 The women entered the noisy restaurant and bar, their hair settling around their faces as the door shut stubbornly against the wind.

Chi Chi searched the room until she found Goku's familiar wild hair and pulled Bulma towards him by her coat sleeve with barely restrained excitement.

Bulma was already snoring. The people crowding the bar in this upscale neighborhood frequented by lawyers and accountants were raucous this Saturday night, and she scrunched her nose up in contempt.

Chi Chi threw her arms around Goku, squeezing his chest tightly. "Hey! I missed you.”

"But you saw me last night!" Goku smiled brilliantly, and Bulma tried not to upchuck at their display of affection.

Though she truly did approve of Chi Chi's beau. And despite Chi Chi's admonishments of Bulma's love life, Bulma had seen her no-nonsense, purposeful friend tear through a dozen boyfriends since they'd decided to roomie together sophomore year, so Bulma was sincerely happy she had finally found a man that satisfied her.

Broadly alike, they were both hard working women in male-dominated fields that weren't afraid to make a decision that somebody wouldn't like. They only appeared to be opposites. Well, they also kept house differently, in the small way that Chi Chi was totally neurotic about keeping a neat and tidy house while Bulma wasn't ashamed to admit she'd slept in Dorito crumbs the other night.

Chi Chi was slim, almost wiry, with a gymnast’s build and a bird's appetite...albeit an organic, free-range only type of bird, Bulma considered sourly. She kept her long, straight hair neat and smooth, and her closet was full of very chic skirts and tailored shirts. In fact, Bulma was wearing one of her outfits (trying to), since her own wardrobe was full of grease-smeared sweaters and holey jeans. ("Just because you're a mechanic doesn't mean you have to dress like one," Chi Chi had chided her when Bulma suggested skipping the shower before going out tonight). She even wore these absolutely elegant nighties to bed—who wears nighties to bed in real life?—in beautiful creams and olives and sapphire blues….Whereas Bulma woke up with hair sticking every which way, one side of her boxers stuck a little too far up her butt and her eyes firmly closed until she'd had her fourth cup of coffee. Bulma didn't know how Chi Chi did it. Magic, she guessed. Bulma tried to mimic her friend's self control when they first became friends, only to have given up a few minutes in, once she decided it was just something people were born with.  
Yes, while both women were dedicated to their careers and got along swell (in the sometimes catty way that girl friends do), there was a stark lifestyle difference between them that was noticeable to everybody.

Bulma was also shorter, with a rounder face and curvier body that wasn't half as model-esque as Chi Chi’s. She was often mistaken to be much younger than she was, but not when it mattered like when she was getting carded. Chi Chi was impressively, unquestionably, a lady, and Bulma...well, the only thing she had going for her was her chest, and it just wasn't enough to seal the deal after she'd mouthed off a few times too many.

Chi Chi had tried to set her up with some of her and Goku's high profile friends, but it had been a nuclear fallout. A few had been interested, in an amused way, upon hearing her profession, but none of them amused her. Bulma found them all particularly stuffy, and conceited, and typical, and for all that she went on about finding a rich man to take care of her, Bulma had very limited patience for rich men. Once she'd snidely remarked to a date that she'd use his MBA for toilet paper for all she cared about laissez-faire capitalism, and that had been the last time Chi Chi tried to set her up on a date.

Bulma smiled suddenly, indulgently at her friend, who was trying to convince Goku that they should have sushi Monday night and go see a film, though Goku look pained as he tried to—carefully, very carefully—suggest eating takeout and watching a movie at home instead. Bulma smirked as Chi Chi oscillated between wanting to override Goku and being plainly flabbergasted that he didn't want to go. After all, even Bulma was civilized enough to get out and about sometimes, visiting the indie theater every Tuesday night to shovel popcorn into her maw and enjoy some sort of poorly-funded film with subtitles. Bulma put her hand on Goku's shoulder and gave them both a dazzling smile, overcome suddenly with love for them both, before insisting that there was a place right next to the theater that had the best Indian cuisine that they would both enjoy.

She had watched Goku, of all people—a sunnily cheerful, laid back, unambitious lawyer in a top firm—open Chi Chi up and bring out an affectionate, patient (well, nearly patient) side to her friend, a side that no one but Chi Chi's half-cracked single father and Bulma could get out of her. Bulma was grateful for Goku, that a man so good natured and happy just to be alive could so be so appreciative and committed to her severe and ostentatious friend. Together, they were well balanced, and Bulma suspected their relationship would go the distance.

Bulma, on the other hand…

She surveyed Goku's sharp dressed co-worker buddies, wondering which hee-hawing lawyer was her unfortunate date tonight with quickly diminishing enthusiasm. They leaned their elbows on the bar, expensive bottled beer and scotch in their grips, paying no attention to her as they laughed boisterously at some terrible, lewd joke.

She knew a few of them. Krillin, the shortest one, was Goku's good friend, and he'd been over to their place a few times for drinks and dinner. Bulma found him pleasant enough and harmless. He wasn't her type, though, and she was glad that he was polite enough to maintain his distance. Well, Bulma's smart mouth probably helped, too.

Then there was Raditz, a cousin of Goku's, one of the few men she'd ever seen who could pull off a pony tail without looking sleazy. He was handsome, sure, his suit stark against his alabaster skin as he rolled his eyes at something Nappa had said. His lips pulled up in a vainglorious smirk as he winked at the woman bartender like a strutting cock. They hadn't spoken since the last time one of their arguments had gotten out of hand and Bulma had told him that his priggish, haughty attitude and his holier-than-thou fashion sense was only a coverup for his obvious desire to eat a cock.

He had avoided her since.

Not that Bulma was complaining.

Even Chi Chi had berated her for turning Raditz down on a night that they'd had too much boxed wine, laying out a carefully plotted and considered agenda for why Raditz and Bulma would be good for each other. Once Bulma had picked her jaw up off the floor, she replied with deadly seriousness, "If you're havin' problems setting me up with some douche, I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and Raditz ain't one." And shortly fell off the bed from a kick to the hip.

Sure, she had her fair share of teasing her best friend. Chi Chi had pounced to tickle her, but Bulma had wisely licked the rest of the unspilled chocolate ice cream off her spoon and asked if she wanted to go make fun of the contestants on West City Idol. Poor Cheech, she just couldn't resist it. Every Wednesday night, she hate-watched West City Idol, and even Goku couldn't get her off the couch between 7 and 8 as she yelled at the TV and alternately dabbed her eyes at an underdog contestant's angelic voice.  
But truly, Raditz was full of himself and entirely self-interested, and he just reminded Bulma of a particular scar-faced ex from college that she hoped was cursed forever to experience excruciating pain in his groin whenever he thought to bring a girl home to the apartment they'd once shared.

No, not even Turles, the older, ruggedly handsome man who acted as a mentor to Goku, could turn Bulma's head.

She watched Nappa down a pint of cheap ale and grimaced. Nevermind that meat head, even as ripped as he was. (Though Chi Chi had said that Goku had said that Nappa consumed nothing but frozen salisbury steak and fruit gummies. Also, way too much Red Bull.)

She'd been through all this before, and if this was the best Chi Chi and Goku could do, she'd rather die an old maid with her carton of pad thai and ice cream clenched to her chest and Scratch on her lap.

Why couldn't Chi Chi understand the appeal of that?

"A Pepsi, please," Bulma instructed the bartender as he approached the women, and they peeled their coats and scarves off as Goku nudged a bar stool towards Chi Chi with his toes.

It wasn't that Bulma was too high maintenance that she couldn't 'find' a man, it was just...she was...different. Chi Chi had worked hard throughout college, pouring herself unapologetically into her textbooks and practice cases with relentless ambition and single minded focus. Bulma, on the other hand, increasingly shirked her homework, skipping class to do...what? Chi Chi had wondered. Or rather, hollered. Why wasn't she taking law school seriously? This was a very serious matter! "You're not my mom!" Bulma had yelled back juvenilely before stomping out of the house...and then turned around to poke her head back around the corner to inform Chi Chi that she had dropped out.

"You what?" Chi Chi had choked out.

"I dropped out. I'm a small business owner now.”

"A what?" Chi Chi's eyes looked like they were soon going to roll into the back of her head.

"I opened up my own shop.”

"Doing what, pray tell?”

Bulma smiled dazzlingly. "Fixing Volkswagens.”

Bulma, as her mother affectionately put it, was a hands-on kind of girl and a teensy bit of a daydreamer, and it wasn't until Chi Chi had called Mrs. Briefs (being something like a second daughter at this point) to tell her (shout at her) the news that Chi Chi finally calmed down and accepted this new event as something-that-was-actually-happening in Bulma's life.

The ever cheery, spacey Mrs. Briefs had actually revealed her excitement at her daughter's plan, and explained that she had always known an orthodox, high profile career was just not in her daughter's acumen.

"Honey, she was accepted into a doctoral program in mechanical engineering when she was 16, and offered a tenured position at 18," Mrs. Briefs had told Chi Chi moonily, as relaxed about the situation as her frustrating daughter. "It's not like my little girl hasn't finished college already!”

"What?" She'd gasped. "Then why the hell did I meet her as a freshman in college?!" Chi Chi screeched.

"Well," Mrs. Briefs mused slowly into the phone, "Bulma didn't like feeling like she'd missed all these important milestones, I think. She was lonely. She thought law might be a good way to balance her intellect with her argumentative nature. So she quit Capsule Corp and went back to school!" Mrs. Briefs chirped summarily.

"Yeah, she seem to has a habit of quitting," Chi Chi muttered fussily. She sighed.

"She just has her own way of doing things, hun," Mrs. Briefs assured her. "But don't you think that she doesn't need you. You have been very, very good for her.”

Which was why Chi Chi had been biting her tongue, trying to have as much patience as possible for the mess of a woman she called her best friend, and why, eventually, she thought maybe a man was the piece Bulma felt was missing from her life. Except, expectantly, Bulma's stubbornness was getting in the way of finding her someone.

Bulma was content with her line of work and her cat and her romance books and her barely there social life. So why was Chi Chi pushing her to be different? A man wasn't going to make her any happier. She had tried that route in college. No, picking up a man's dirty underwear, staring at her watch as she waited for him to cum already and finding him in their bed with another woman was definitely not going to make her life any more meaningful.

Goku pulled out a stool for Bulma and turned his contagious smile to her. "What's up, Bulma? How are you?”

She forced a smile and draped her coat and scarf over the stool. "I've been better, honestly, Goku." Chi Chi elbowed her in the ribs. "Just kidding," she corrected her previous statement with poorly disguised dishonesty, and Chi Chi rolled her eyes and pulled a lock of Bulma's hair.

"So where's this man Bulma must meet?" Chi Chi interrupted with over-effusive cheeriness, glancing over the group of men guffawing behind Goku. Her face pinched with distaste.

"You know what," Bulma interrupted, holding her hands up placatingly, "I'm going to go use the little super girl's room. If I can find it through all these accountant bros and all this bad cologne.”

Chi Chi looked like she was about to rip off Bulma's arm in an attempt to make her stay put.

"I'll be back," she promised. Bulma turned on her heel and hurriedly made her way through the crowd to avoid being hauled back to the spot by her ear.

As soon as she entered the restroom she assured the valet she could wipe herself (to his silent horror) and slammed the bathroom door shut, falling onto the cold toilet with a sigh. She loved her friend, she really did, but these kinds of circuses where the boys club of West City came to throw money around and wait for women to dote on their job titles wasn't her idea of a good time.

Once she exited the spacious stall, her heels tapping on the slate tile, she tried ignoring the valet as she kind of patted whatever it was Chi Chi did to her hair back in place. She smoothed the front of her tailored shirt, the buttons really stressed as her chest threatened to pop them clean off, and awkwardly wiggled in the pencil skirt, wondering if it was supposed to fit so snugly at the knees that she felt like she was taking little baby steps everywhere. She glanced up at the valet, who glanced away in mortification.

Surely this was the twenty first century, right? Surely a woman could wear pants out without scorn from her peers? Chi Chi had nagged and nagged at her this evening for not having anything appropriate to wear for a night out…at least until Bulma hollered, "There! I put on some deodorant! Does that make you happy?! Yeesh!" as she untucked her work shirt from her trousers and pushed her stick of deodorant into her armpit maniacally.

"Bulma," Chi Chi had sighed, resting her forehead in her hand. "I refuse to believe you're a lost cause," assuring herself more than Bulma.

Bulma blew air sharply through her nose and readied herself in front of the bathroom door. Maybe if she just buried herself in a basket of nachos this blind date guy would leave her alone. This was that kind of bar, wasn't it?  
She was relieved when the valet didn't offer to open the door for her, and the sound of glasses tinking, men laughing, and jazz floated toward her. The restaurant had somehow gotten even more crowded in the few minutes she had used the restroom, and she tried finding her way back to the bar, slinking through the crowd. It didn't help that she was a petite woman. Her height, she had theorized, made it not only difficult to see Goku's big head but made it nearly impossible to be intimidating, as she finally resorted to pushing people out of her way.

A man's shoulder knocked her chest as she barreled through, her breath escaping in a rush and her brows knitting furiously. "Watch it, jerk," she growled.

"You're the one who bumped into me," countered a deep, amused voice, and Bulma's mouth thinned as she glanced up into the eyes of the prick getting sassy with her.

Rich dark eyes regarded her from a chiseled, tan face with the assured hunger of a predator assessing its prey. His expression, however, was reserved, despite his full black lashes and his debonair suit. His sharply angled jaw tightened with disapproval as he took her in.

"What's your problem?" Bulma's eyes narrowed. "A classic case of short man syndrome, I'll bet.”

He stared down his nose at her with straightforward contempt. "Rather a Napoleon than a trifling, frothing Marie Antoinette.”

"Excuse me?!" Were her eyebrows about to rip at the seams? "I am a Marie Curie, get it right!" She snarled.

"I'm sorry," he smiled impishly, "did all that radium exposure hinder your wit as well as your height?”

"Listen here, bud," she seethed, inching closer to him and gritting her teeth upwards in his face. "I don't have the time or the patience for a Backstreet Boy wannabe like you," glancing distastefully at the man's long, upwards styled hair. "Now mope back to your miserable bloated life on Wall Street and spare me the odor of your hair gel.”

The man’s—extraordinarily handsome, she had to admit—face turned dusky and he closed the gap between them, chest heaving with restrained irritation.

"Take your ridiculous blue curls and the extra padding from all that cake and get out of your superior's sight, Mademoiselle Antoinette," he crooned into her face.

Can steam legitimately come out of one's ears? Bulma thought there might just be a first time for everything.

"Ohhh, you pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed, facetious bastard," she drew through gnashed teeth.

"Take up more of my time and I will have to charge you at an advanced rate," he smiled cruelly, before walking past her, though not before knocking her back lightly with his shoulder. "Besides," he called over his shoulder, "I like my Wall Street whores with a little less padding from all that cake.”

Bulma's nails dug into her clenched fists and she let out a little sound like a shrieking tea kettle as she watched the man walk off leisurely into the crowd. Her mouth opened once, twice, like a fish out of water, and it wasn't until she was able to pry her shoulders down from her ears that she managed a tight, "Yeah, well, the 90's called, and they want their bad hair back! Argh!" She wheedled, and stomped towards the bar, marching in the wrong direction twice before finding her friend, who was trying to maintain a conversation with Raditz and failing to look interested.

“--and that's why my agent said I should hold off on the modeling career to wait until after I become a full partner at the firm."  
"Uh huh. Well, I'm sure your other partners will at least admire your beauty until you're able to make money off of it. Bulma, hello," she said dryly, turning towards her with wide, harried eyes and a tight smile. "Let's go for a smoke," she said through grit teeth, gesturing towards the door leading outside with her eyes. She pulled her friend with jerky little tugs towards the terrace, where the bar boasted a balcony, closed until warmer weather, that had currently been adopted by smokers.

"Ohmygod, what is wrong with Raditz lately? Some schmuck put it into his head that he should model underwear for Kami's sake, and now it's all the man talks about." Chi Chi pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket, her tone changing as she frowned with concern at her friend. "Jeez, Bulma, you're tense. What's wrong with you?”

"I'll tell you what's wrong with me!" The blue haired woman all but yelled, eyes wild as she struck the match and put it to the tip of her cigarette. "You drug me to this awful Wall Street swingers club where I'm pretty sure some freak show just CALLED ME FAT and said I was MARIE ANTOINETTE, when clearly I am Marie Curie! I have never heard something so insulting in all my life!”

"Bulma Briefs, you need to get out once in awhile! Scratch can live without you a few hours!”

Bulma blew smoke angrily and looked pleadingly at her friend.

"And what are you talking about," Chi Chi continued. “Some guy accosted you on the way to the bathroom?”

"He accosted me after the bathroom. The guy was a total nincompoop! And the valet thing. What is that? It's just weird!" Bulma looked up at the cloudy night sky with frustration, her face lit softly by a string of lantern lights that scored the outside patio railing. "I don't know. It's just, that's why I hate these places. Goku is so sweet, Cheech, don't get me wrong. He's in a league of his own." Chi Chi snorted at that affectionately. "But these are the kinds of assholes I have to prove myself to everyday. They come in driving their brand new BMW's or their restored Porsche's and they're like 'I'm having a carburetor problem, fix it' and I'm like 'No you're not, I'm the professional, and I say it's a transmission problem,’ and then they're like 'Well I don't feel like paying you after all this work because you're a woman and are unable to comprehend anything beyond the color of your nail polish—‘"

"Okay, enough car talk, I'm drawing a blank with all this car stuff.”

“—Okay, but these are just the kinds of assholes, the kind of rich kids who think I'm just a pair of tits, I'm just the fucking secretary or something that somehow blundered into this industry. Well, I'm not. And I'm not scared to tell them off! And they just can't stand being proven wrong by a woman!”

"We all know you're not a pair of tits, Briefs," Chi Chi smiled warmly at her friend before snuffing her cigarette out. "Believe me, you've made that very clear, to everyone you meet, unfortunately. For being a shut-in grease monkey, you have a mouth on you the size of a dinner plate.”

"Shut up," Bulma complained, before drawing her friend in for a grateful side squeeze.

"The better to give a blow job with," Chi Chi whispered suggestively, opening the door and letting Bulma go first.

"Not interested," Bulma reparteed, already feeling better. "Please tell me this is the last time you're going to bring me to one of these places to set me up with someone?" Bulma's eyes wiggled encouragingly.

"You need a man who's husband material," Chi Chi mused. "Someone happy to put up with your soda pop swilling and weekend-long pair of pajamas. That's why you're here, remember? Us older ladies, we're not 21 anymore. We gotta work to meet men now.”

Bulma groaned.

"Goku left to go find your date. He'd taken a phone call or something before we got here. I bet they're waiting for us now," she encouraged Bulma sweetly, pushing her friend ahead of her in the crowd and giving her a light tap on the behind, which Bulma swatted away with affectionate irritation.

"Goku says he thinks you guys will really get along. The man is ambitious, well-respected in the industry, rich," Chi Chi whispered alluringly, "and, I'm sure, a total fireworks show in the sack.”

"Yeah, well if he's a Raditz or a Krillin, I'm out.”

"Don't be like that," Cheech snapped, pushing her toward the bar, which bobbed in their sight between the mass of bodies. "This will be good for you. And Goku was adamant that you guys would really get along." Finally the crowd broke, and Bulma saw Goku's characteristic hair (that Bulma had watched, giggling, as Chi Chi try to slick down with her spit more than once).

Raditz was smirking into his beer behind him as, to Bulma's rapidly escalating dread, the same sharp-tongued, well-dressed nincompoop who'd run into her on the way out of the bathroom stood suavely against the bar, all perfectly contained savagery, listening to Nappa ramble with little attention.

"Chi Chi! Bulma! I have someone I'd like you to meet!" Goku was pulling Bulma to his side, grinning idiotically as he gestured at the stranger…

..."Bulma, Vegeta, meet your date tonight!”...

whose eyes met Bulma's with an equal amount of dismay.


	2. Chapter 2

_Oh. My. God._

"We've met," Bulma growled, as Goku looked back and forth between the two blind dates, waiting for the hands and pleasantries to extend.

The man huffed, rolling his eyes to the side dismissively.

"Oh, really?" Goku exclaimed, addressing Bulma. "Great! Well then, you know Vegeta is a partner at Bardock Vejita and Sons, right? He was the top administrative and civil law litigator in West City, until they made him partner. Now he just gets to lean back in his cushy office chair and boss us around from the other side of the glass." He sent Vegeta a wink that may as well have traveled a great distance just to hit the man's hardened pout with a smack and fall gracelessly onto the floor, ignored.

"I'm still just a measly paralegal," Goku admitted good-naturedly, giving a gracious smile to Chi Chi, who squeezed his arm.

The treacherous witch. Bulma looked daggers at Chi Chi. She wasn't satisfied with running Bulma's life, no, she had to find her someone plucked from the lawyer pool again. Someone that rivaled Chi Chi’s own position of senior associate at Baba and Korin, where she had the pleasure of bossing around the large staff in the name of keeping the founder's pristine reputations. Eh, maybe she was being too hard on her best friend. Chi Chi only wanted the best for her. They just had...completely opposing definitions of what was good for her.

"And Vegeta, this is Bulma. She owns B's Dubs in the West Bottoms. It's a Volkswagen repair shop in the old manufacturing part of town!"

She had to applaud Goku's kindness. There was no trace of mockery in his introduction, only genuine, honest-to-goodness good will.

Vegeta, however, snorted loudly, rolling his eyes dramatically and sipping his scotch before turning his burning gaze elsewhere. "Delightful," he muttered dryly.

"We've been friends a long time," added Chi Chi, smile dripping with sweetness in hopes of reeling in Bulma's potential husband. Who was she kidding. If Chi Chi thought that this thing could work out between her and him, she needed to rethink Chi Chi's loyalty. Bulma sent her a dramatic scowl that Chi Chi ignored.

Vegeta responded to Chi Chi's histrionics by giving her a thoroughly dastardly smirk, an elegant eyebrow winging, which earned an almost comical frown from Chi Chi.

"Why don't we say hi to Paragus and Turles, Cheech, heh heh?" Goku suggested, already pulling Chi Chi away. "We've already ordered dinner for everyone, it should be here soon," he informed them with a broad smile.

"Just order drinks and get to know each other!" Chi Chi trilled, her eyes nearly squeezing shut with the wide smile she sent them even as Goku twirled her away, waving over her shoulder.

To Bulma's irritation, Vegeta spoke as soon as they turned away, glancing down with repulsion at her watered down Pepsi.

"Soda? _Really?_ How quaint."

Bulma grit her teeth.

"Can I get you a refill?" A voice asked from across the bar, and she tried to unclench her jaw enough to smile politely at the bartender.

"A Long Island Iced Tea. In your biggest glass," she replied pleasantly. Well, it was an attempt at pleasantly. …A failed attempt.

"So you've now graduated to drunken sorority girl? Good to see evidence right before my eyes that evolution is making leaps and bounds in procuring the best and the very brightest in our industrial sector." He leaned his elbow on the bar and smiled at her devilishly. His voice was smoothly arrogant, dipping into his raspy, lower registers only when he was saying something particularly hurtful.

She glared at the bar in front of her and tried really, really hard not to swipe and hiss at the bastard like an angry wild cat.

"I'm going to need more than this to deal with you," she explained as the bartender sat down her glass, "you stuffy, pretentious, tight assed—"

"Ah, I see your use of the English language is as impressive as your ‘profession’—“

Bulma shoved her face under his. "Don't you dare patronize me, not until you hit puberty, short stack!"

"Puberty must have happened quite recently to you, yourself, given the way your buttons are popping at the seams," he whispered raspily in her face. "What, did you think you could fit into your skinny friend's clothes tonight? You might rethink your figure," he whispered, baring his teeth at her in a nasty smile.

"Ah, ha ha," Goku laughed awkwardly, loudly, from behind them. "Seems like you guys are already hitting it off. Great. That's...great."

"No, no!" Chi Chi laughed nervously, waving her hand in the air as if all this were a joke between friends. "Bulma's just, like that, you know, she has...a dry sense of humor!"

"Vegeta's sense of humor is as salty and desiccated as the results of my sexual dry patch," Nappa grumbled into his fourth scotch from beside them.

"Look, the server's here! He brought dinner! Sit down, sit down!" Chi Chi gestured at the table reserved beside them like a mother hen.

As Bulma sat in her seat, she felt her dates suit coat brush her arm, and she jolted, looking up to see him sit next to her, fixing her with a testy glower. Then he smiled impishly. "Oh good, look's like the waiter brought my steak dry and overdone," he crooned, "just like my date."

Bulma returned his unnerving mien and then turned her nose up, cutting her steak gracefully. Or at least, trying to.

"What a gentleman you are," she hummed softly. "He brought my steak bloody. Just like I like my men," she whispered harshly, swiveling her head sharply to give him a heated, hateful glare.

"So why don't we get to know each other a little bit," Chi Chi offered, smoothing her skirt as she sat and then fixing them with a demure smile. "Vegeta no'Ouji, why don't you start? I'm sure Bulma would be interested in hearing how you got into managing the Freeman case."

Bulma looked up at him sharply. "Excuse me? The Freeman case, between Congressman Freeman and Isaac Pressman?"

"Why, yes," he responded, smoothly cutting his steak. "I'm shocked to see that you are, indeed, literate."

Bulma, surprisingly, ignored the bait, quite serious for the first time tonight. "Of course I know about it. It's a case involving the gerrymandering of the neighborhood my business is in. If Freeman's very illegal manipulations are ignored, the levy passed for the neighborhood's renovation will fall through. Our rent and taxes will skyrocket, and all the good people who are self-employed in my neighborhood will lose their source of income and their homes. It's a matter that impacts a lot of helpless people," she explained urgently.

For the first time that night, Vegeta regarded her with an interest that went beyond how to best insult her. He cast a puzzled look at the little blue haired loud mouth from the corner of his eyes as the bite of steak delicately held by his fork hovered near his mouth. "Indeed." He bit off the steak with his teeth and prodded his summer squash with detached boredom, churning over his response. Finally, he shoved his fork through the veggies and his mouth twisted up in a smile. "But I'm heading the prosecution."

"What?!" Bulma screeched, loud enough to silence the tables around them.

Vegeta couldn't help but give a small smile as he popped the grilled squash in his mouth.

"Why on Earth would you do that?" She hissed frenziedly, fixing him with an intense blue stare from under her fallen curls.

His eyebrows cocked, barely looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Why not?"

"Because you're using your power for evil! You're playing for the bad guys. That's why!" She yelled sincerely, Chi Chi's hands turning nervously in her lap at the scene her friend was making, as Goku regarded Bulma with befuddled concern. "What kind of lawyer does that?"

Vegeta looked at her strangely.

Vegeta's eyes flicked over the other couple.

Had Goku set him up with a total idiot?

"Because that's my job," he said slowly, as if talking to a toddler. "I'm a lawyer."

"Oh, fuck off, you geriatric overdressed indistinguishable twit," she sneered, as Chi Chi and Goku stared in horror and Vegeta's eyebrows fell into a glower that promised doom, his chiseled jaw tightening in waspish offense. Bulma barely had the time to bask in the satisfaction from it, what with all the pure disgust she was feeling at the moment. For this man, for her friends. "There's a special place in Hell for Axe-cologne wearing, self-interested attorneys like you."

"Goku," Vegeta snarled, his head snapping toward his co-worker. "Why in the Hell did you set me up with this lunatic?"

"Ummmm," Goku stared at them, slack jawed.

Chi Chi's salad fork drooped in front of her parted mouth and was starting to lose some of its bits of cheese and bacon.

"Because my 'friend' here wanted me to fall in love and marry you you sick disgusting crusher of disadvantaged people's hopes and dreams," Bulma snarled. "This is probably the worst date you've ever set me up on, Cheech, and you have certainly put me through one after another. I trusted you." Chi Chi's face paled as Bulma thrust her napkin onto the table. "Well, I mean, I didn't really believed I'd like anyone you set me up with, but I at least trusted that I could peacefully ignore them and make you happy. And where the hell are the nachos?" Bulma slammed her hand on the table before standing up, wrenching her coat from the back of her chair. "Thanks a lot. It's been a real pleasure," she issued snidely, tugging on her coat backwards, before flipping it around with frustration.

"Great. Let's do this again sometime." Vegeta's sarcasm was evident.

"Ughhhhh," Bulma growled, before grabbing her tall glass of spiked iced tea and, to the shock of everyone at the surrounding tables, downed it in one go, throat bobbing rhythmically, breasts heaving slightly under the buttons of a severely stressed blouse. As the dregs of the alcohol were swallowed, she slammed the mug down on Vegeta's plate with a crash and strode to the door. She wasn't at all trying to be overly dramatic. Oh no, she was simply furious.

“Bulma—“ she heard Chi Chi call in the unsettling quiet of the restaurant.

Bulma swiveled, threw her arms up in the air and walked the rest of the way to the door backwards on wobbly heels.

"No," she announced. "I'm out. PEACE." She backed into a table, spilling some guest's wine.

"What the hell, lady—"

"Fuck you," Bulma sniped, pointing at the indignant, sharp-dressed man whose date, certainly half his age, stared at her incredulously under a thick layer of makeup. "I'm a mechanic."

And that's when Bulma turned and walked out the door.

"That was the fire exit," Chi Chi said weakly. "I tried to tell her."

Chi Chi and Goku's eyes slid sideways toward Vegeta.

Vegeta began shaking his head vehemently. "Oh, no," he protested, "no way. I am not going out there. I look forward to never speaking to that walking tragedy again."

"You're the one who made this mess," Chi Chi accused him, raising her voice. "You should be the one to clean it up!"

"She's the mess. And...and you—" He pointed at Goku and then Chi Chi, deeply not appreciating being given responsibility of this. "You're the ones who set this disaster up."

At Chi Chi's hard, flat stare, Vegeta sighed sulkily, scowling. Not even he was immune to Chi Chi's talents.

"Fine," he barked, standing. "But I want nothing else to do with the nutcase. And after this, I'm going home, and you'll pay for this by paying for this wretched dinner."

He slammed the chair into the table, turning to follow her path of destruction towards the fire exit and glowering at anyone who dared to look at him.

Chi Chi and Goku watched the man stride across and open the door roughly before the door closed slowly behind him.

"Goku," Chi Chi intoned softly, "I don't know if this is your worst or best idea."

The couple gave each other harried stares.

* * *

Vegeta let out a gravelly sigh as the cold air hit him like a wall and the door shut behind him. A flash of blue caught his eye, and he turned to his left, where, to his exasperation, the nutty woman was climbing on to the fire escape and slowly making her way down. He found himself striding towards her, a sour expression marking his face. "What the hell are you doing?"

Bulma jumped when she heard him and stopped her descent to look up. "I'm getting out of here," she replied defensively.

"And you couldn't use the front door?"

"Um, the door locks from the outside," she explained sheepishly.

Vegeta went stiff with alarm.

"I tried to get back in when I realized this was the wrong door," she explained in an even smaller voice.

Vegeta whipped around to stare at the innocuous wooden door. His eyes bulged. Now he was stuck out on this terrace? With her?!

"You've got to be kidding me. What a farce," he snarled.

"Why are you out here anyway? It's not like I asked you to come out here," she snapped, brows furrowing, fists clenching on the ladder.

"I don't want to be here," he retorted petulantly, eyes sliding away self-consciously.

She smirked. Chi Chi had gotten to him. Seemed he wasn't as immovable as he liked to appear. "Want a little cheese with that whine?"

His attention snapped back onto her. "I'm not the one stuck out on the third floor fire escape ladder in the middle of January in heels." This time he grinned predatorily.

Her eyes narrowed. "Now I remember why I left." As if to prove her point, she started her way back down with a firm stomp...only for the fire escape steps underneath her to give way and tumble to the ground below her. Bulma let out a frightened shriek and gripped the cold metal for dear life.

"Someone should really have tightened those fucking bolts!" She screamed, legs kicking in the air.

Vegeta jerked his hand out to her.

"I'll fall!" She wailed, eyes watering in the frigid wind.

"You'll fall anyway." His face was screwed with both concern and a new, amused exasperation.

She swung her legs under her, her knees finding purchase against the very last step before it just gave way to empty space. "You're an asshole! Why would I trust you? You'll probably let me go!" The metal grating was biting into her knees, the ladder swaying slightly in the breeze.

Vegeta's eyes rolled upwards and he sneered, though not unattractively. "Just give me your hand, you fatalistic, poor-excuse-for-a-dramatic-exit-giving wacko!"

Bulma's arm shot out, and she angrily slipped her hand into his and gripped tightly. "I hate you," she growled as he pulled her up, as she, for the moment, relied on his strength and common decency to save her from the thirty foot fall. He yanked her up with surprising ease, and she helped him push herself the rest of the way before falling against him and letting out a breath, craning her neck upwards to look into his eyes. He's not that short, her stupid, terrified brain thought absently.

"Thanks," she murmured, before he loosed his grip on her, and she tucked her hair behind her ears as it whipped her face. She caught the faint scent of his laundry detergent and deodorant, an agreeable blend of fresh cotton and the gunpowder musk of a saloon.

"You're pathetic," he commented dryly.

Her expression grew stormy. "And you," she seethed, poking him in the shoulder, surprisingly firm under her finger, "you are much more human than I anticipated. My gratitude remains," she said cooly, before stepping away and crossing her arms over her chest. "How are we going to get back inside? No one can hear us knock."

"Woman, you are too much trouble," he found himself sighing, but not without a small amount of begrudging humor.

"I have a name," she huffed.

"What, Totally Foolish? Entirely Mental? Thoroughly Cracked?"

She let out a little frustrated shriek and stomped to the other side of the terrace as far away from him as she could manage on the wide walkway, glancing back at him malevolently before leaning her butt against the railing and slipping her heels off one by one. The pavement was shockingly cold against her hosed feet, and as Vegeta's face screwed with irritated puzzlement, Bulma hurled the shoes off the balcony, one by one.

"Hey, you!" She hollered down. Vegeta grew a look of horror as the small blue haired woman leaned forward over the rail and hollered at passersby. "Hey! We need help! We're stuck up here!" In an effort to be heard, the woman leaned her body even further out over the railing, and Vegeta moved to grab her by her arm and jerk her back upright.

"Are you insane?" He roared.

"I'm strategizing! It's more than you can say, just standing there!"

"Look!" He pointed at the corner of the terrace, where another fire escape ladder hung inconspicuously.

"Woohoo!" Bulma pumped her fist excitedly and shuffled over to the ladder sans shoes. "Chi Chi's going to kill me when she learns her designer shoes are kaput," she muttered.

"I'll go first," Vegeta volunteered with irritation.

"Is that how the adage goes? Gentlemen first?" Bulma remarked wryly.

"I figure if you go first, the chances of you hurting yourself are off the charts. I'm just mitigating my chances of being slapped with a lawsuit.”

Bulma regarded him flatly.

“And that way,” he added with enthusiasm, “I can see your face when I reach out to catch you, but retract my arm back," he smiled twistedly, "and say 'Sike.'" He leered.

"Just go already," she ordered, shooing him towards the ladder. As he stepped onto the ladder a lot more gracefully than she had, she followed, frowning. "And you better not try to peek up my skirt."

He stopped to look up at her with hot contempt.

"Although I don't know how that's possible," she muttered. "I can barely walk in it."

The frigid wind ruffled his upwards spiking hair as he regarded her darkly. "Not interested," he hissed.

"Well me either," she sniffed, watching him advance down the ladder until there was enough room for her to join him.

The two carefully made their way down the rickety ladder against the cranberry night sky, a few raindrops splatting against their hands and cheeks. "My hands are getting numb," Bulma whined, before the heel of her foot hit something soft and warm.

"Woman!" She heard him snap from below, and she looked down as Vegeta swatted her foot away from his shoulder. "Hold on!"

"What's the hold up?" She complained, staring at the top of his head as he angled his body to look down. They were about to the second floor now, their ladder hanging from a wall that adjoined another terrace, this one dark and abandoned just below them.

She had the strangest urge to touch his hair. Delicately, she reached out with her toes and ran them over the top fringes of his hair, regretting the hose that stood between her bare feet and his soft, thick hair. He swatted her foot away. She smiled.

"Will you stop just for a minute?" He was really focused on something.

"What are you—?"

"Oh shit," she heard him say from below her.

"What?" She barely had time to ask before he was scrambling back up. "What's going on?" She squeaked as he climbed up behind her, pressing his chest against her back and knocking the air out of her, coming to stand on the stair just underneath her.

"There's a drug deal going on down there. What kind of neighborhood did you bring me to," he griped, looking harried.

Her mouth parted in a slow, smug smile as she regarded him from over her shoulder, the poor guy trying his hardest to hang on to the ladder but keep his distance from her. A few tumbling chuckles escaped her. "Oh, you sad, naive, privileged rich kid. It's probably just some kid buying this week's weed—"

Two gun shots rang out, buffering the brick walls and echoing fiercely around them, causing a ringing in their ears as they stared at each other in the pulsing light of gun fire with alarm. There was shouting and scuffling from just below them. Their hearts hammered in their chest.

They stood rigidly against one another as the sound of men arguing preceded the slam of doors and pounding footsteps before the ladder trembled and clanged with the weight of another person below them. Vegeta and Bulma's eyes never left the other's as they felt the person below them descend quickly down the ladder, waiting for him to look up, to spot them. But before they knew it, the ladder clattered and shook as the person jumped off at the bottom and sprinted across the street. There was more gunfire across the street as the man disappeared into the shadows between buildings, and then the wail of sirens in the distance.

Bulma watched the shadows across the street with wide eyes, clenching the ladder, but the sirens seemed to wake Vegeta from the spell of terror. He scrambled down the ladder, leaving Bulma to gape after him.

“What—“

"Hurry up before the cops get here! I'm not getting my license revoked because you're an idiot."

Bulma's eyebrows shot upwards and she didn't ask anymore questions, climbing after him quickly. The descent was much easier without heels as both the sirens and the rain opened upon them. She felt the ladder shake and lighten as Vegeta jumped off the last few feet, and she hopped down after him, landing jarringly upright and with an unflattering, "Ooph."

He pivoted, trying to locate the front door of the building, but another shot was fired, this one ricocheting off something close enough to create sparks against the brick wall beside them.

Bulma squealed before he tugged her in the opposite direction, deeper into the alley. They raced through the dark, oxfords and feet slapping against the pavement as the sky opened up a deluge and blue and red lights finally coursed through the alley behind them, growing dimmer as Bulma and Vegeta came out the other side of the alley, right into the middle of a busy street. A few cars slammed on their brakes and laid on their horns, and they flinched, before Bulma snatched his hand, pulling him across the rest of the street. "C'mon!" She threw her arms over her head to protect against the rain and raced forward down the city sidewalk, looking back every few seconds to make sure the stubborn man was following.

He took long strides behind her, too prideful to run, his white tailored shirt damp and translucent against his skin. She hopped up the steps of a stoop and searched frantically in her coat pocket for her keys, feeling his presence finally behind her, his chest brushing her back as he tried to get out of the rain and under the enclave. Just as she was getting seriously impatient, the old knob turned and they spilled inside the dark foyer of the renovated apartment complex, Vegeta shutting the door firmly behind them as soon as they cleared the entryway.

They both thrust their fingers into the blinds of the nearest window and peeked outside. No cops or criminals lingered behind, only a curtain of rain that looked as if it were melting the street lights with its weight.

The blinds snapped closed as they both let out a relieved breath and looked at one another. Vegeta's long thick hair lay flattened in thick tufts against his head, and Bulma's own curly hair was already starting its frizzy rebellion.

She was the first to let out a chuckle, and Vegeta smirked at her, letting out a delicate, disbelieving snort.

"Come on," she ordered, still smiling, walking towards the elevator, the gold doors opening benevolently for them as they neared. An older gentleman exited, and the sight of him broke the spell between them as they shuffled awkwardly into the elevator. Bulma pressed button '4' and rung out her long hair, water splatting against the elevator carpet.

Vegeta cast her a scathing look, and she rolled her eyes at him. "Can you possibly be even more uptight?" She complained.

"Why are you such a barbarian?" He snapped back. "Were you raised by wolves?"

She rested her hands on her hips as she watched the elevator numbers slowly climb.

"Why would Goku even like you," she mused.

"Perhaps he recognizes a superior when he sees him."

She huffed.

She couldn't believe it, but she...she might be growing used to his snide commentating. It was losing its power to get under her skin. Instead, she was beginning to relish it, as it blossomed into a unique game between them.

"That explains why he paired you up with me, then." She smiled sweetly. "Chi Chi has been trying for almost two years now to find my equal."

"Two years and still no match?" He tucked his hands into his wet suit jacket and smiled venomously down at her. "It sounds to me like you're a lost cause," he suggested.

The elevator came to a stop jerkily and the old doors opened with a hard woosh, and Vegeta stepped out, smirking over his shoulder at her as she tried to come up with someway to explain how it wasn't a personal failing that she didn't have a man in her life.

She stepped out of the elevator, her mouth gaping like a fish, and finally she huffed, sauntering past him with as much dignity as she could muster before freeing the keys from her pocket and sliding the key into her door.

Time enough to tilt his head to to the side and wring out his own hair. He shook his head of the rest of the moisture and looked up to see the woman smiling back at him, entertained, and he swiftly caught up to her, hiding a faint blush with a glower.

She wouldn't let it go. "You know," she mused, and he cut her a look that just dared her to go there.

She did. "Even after a hard rain, it still stands up. How much hairspray do you go through a week, honestly?"

A growl recoiled from his chest, and for an instant, he lost his self control, waving his hands wildly around his head. "It just does this, okay?!"

She let out the first sincere laugh she'd had all night and opened the door, flicking on the light and stepping in. She shut the door lightly after he stomped through the doorway, and he took in the modern, tidy apartment with barely concealed surprise. He was expecting more...cars on cinder blocks.

"Let me get you a towel and an umbrella. I think Goku might have some clothes here that you could borrow. But that's just between me and you." Her voice became muffled as she trailed into a bedroom at one end of the spacious front room. "Chi Chi's father is still a devout Catholic, so as far as he knows, Chi Chi and Goku have only gotten as far as holding hands."

She strode back out with a pile of clothes and two oversized towels against her chest, setting them on the couch. "I could use a drink. I really wasn't expecting to be in the middle of a gun fight tonight. You?"

"What is this, Compton?" He shrugged out of his wet suit jacket, tugging the clinging, heavy sleeves off each arm.

"This is a very nice neighborhood," she protested from the kitchen, where, dripping onto the tile, she reached up on her tippy toes and grabbed two shot glasses from the shelf of a cupboard. She uncorked an extra large bottle of premium vodka and poured them generously. "In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason we live here is because Chi Chi was convinced it was the only place worthy of a woman so dignified as she." Bulma snorted.

"Social climber," she heard Vegeta mutter snarkily from the living room.

"You know, if she wasn't already spoken for, I'd say that Chi Chi was more your type of woman." She walked into the living room carrying both their drinks and the bottle squished between her breast and her forearm, swallowing as she saw him toss his tie on the couch, his tailored shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the cut of his compact waist tapering into his pants surprisingly dashing. She turned her gaze quickly toward the coffee table, where she sat the drinks, hiding a blush that his deep brown eyes caught. He watched her down her drink and then reach her hand up her skirt, yanking the tops of her thigh hi's down.

"What kind of woman do you think I like?" He asked playfully, watching her tug the remaining hose off her dirty feet, his lingering gaze becoming a little frown as he glimpsed her unexpectedly muscular thighs.

"I'm just saying that both you and Chi Chi are...arrogant and hard to please," she finished, difficultly.

"That woman is not my type."

"Funny, that's how I feel about you." She smiled with barely contained glee at the jab.

He looked at her flatly before falling to the couch with a huff, giving the glasses a glance, his tailored trousers rising just enough over his ankles for her to note his pristine leather shoes. _Gack._

"You are not my type in the slightest," he huffed, his nose in the air, before rolling his head against the couch to look at her with a smirk. "I like my women way less loud. Preferably with a commitment that only lasts as long as the morning. Now give me that glass."

She couldn't help but smile at him, tucking her legs under her butt, their wet clothes temporarily forgotten.

She handed him his drink, pouring herself another as he downed his shot. She immediately refilled him.

"Let me guess: you like fancy women.” He raised his eyebrow at her, but she was already feeling the warmth of the vodka, reigniting the remnants of the buzz from the Long Island that had evaporated with the scare on the fire escape. "Women with expensive jewelry and designer handbags and implants. Women that flatter you.” She rolled her eyes dramatically at the thought.

He shrugged. "I like a woman that takes care of herself."

"Hey, I take care of myself. I shaved for the first time in two months for this date."

She smiled into her glass as he nearly choked on his second drink.

"What you're refraining from saying is that the women you're into are gold diggers," she continued.

"I don't allow women close enough to touch my money." He held out his glass demandingly for a refill, and she refilled it with a moue.

"You're a real prick," she commented.

He gave her a warm smirk, before gulping down his third shot. He leaned forward and placed the glass on the glass coffee table, the hard muscles in his side flexing under his damp shirt, and he sat back, tucking his hands under his head casually. "And you're a nutcase."

"I'd rather be a nutcase than some woman pining for some shallow, rich man's attention every night," she said seriously, refilling her own glass as he gazed at her out of the corner of his eyes. "What is this, slouching?" She gestured at his nearly impeccable posture. "You never fail to surprise me, rich kid." She stood up and made her way back into the kitchen.

He smirked. "The quality of this vodka and class of your decor has me quite surprised," he called out.

"Don't be. It's all Chi Chi's doing. If you think this is nice, you should see my room. Although the vodka is mine. Cheech is more of a strawberry daiquiri and hard lemonade kind of gal." Bulma made a face of distaste as she peered inside the fridge, the chilly air reminding her that she needed to get out of her wet clothes. "Just because I'm blue collar doesn't mean I can't have good taste," she muttered.

"You certainly had me fooled." He smiled broadly, canines glinting, the only indication he was feeling relaxed. Bulma missed it, her head in the fridge.

"Don't you get enough arguing while you're at work?"

"What can I say, it's my bread and butter."

She snorted next to the milk jug, then froze as she felt him at her back.

"What you got in there?" He breathed behind her. She looked over her shoulder slowly to see him peering into the fridge.

She stifled a laugh. "Are you hungry? Just say so."

"What are you going to cook me?" He grinned, and she noticed he was gripping the bottle of vodka, a significant portion of it gone.

"I'm not cooking you anything," she replied incredulously, making sure to send him a critical look after glancing at his trophy hold on the alcohol. "I don't cook. I can hardly pour a bowl of cereal."

"Just like you can barely locate an exit?"

Her mouth parted, her brows drawing together. "Not all of us are as perfect as you. Your highness."

"That I am," he smiled down at her heatedly, his proximity to her making her skin prickle. Or maybe it was the standing in front of the fridge bit.

"I can think of a few things you could improve on," she retorted, turning into him and trying her best to look like she wasn't the least bit aware of the way he was looking at her. _Cool us off, fridge._

"Like what?"

The liquor was definitely doing its job, because he was much more tolerable when liquored up. When she was liquored up. Whatever.

"You know, you're actually kind of cute," she said, before clapping her hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean that."

He pried her hand from her mouth delicately, before his smug, upwards curving smile pressed, warm and rich, against the corner of her mouth.

"I think you did," she felt him say against her skin.

"Are you going to cook me something?" She squeaked.

His hand slid hot and inviting over her jaw, and he angled her face up to his. "What are you hungry for?"

"Pancakes. Tacos. Green beans. I don't know do you like to cook?" She tittered nervously, trying to stop whatever it was between them that she knew was sliding swiftly out of her hands.

"I love to cook," he admitted huskily, before kissing her softly on the mouth. "Just tell me what you want, and I'll get right on it. I find it hard to back down from a challenge." He looked up at her from his eyelashes, and she was struck by the genuine heat there and the pool of warmth it generated in her belly.

"Where's your smart mouth now," he whispered into her parted mouth.

"I'll show you smart mouth," she growled, before grabbing the collar of his shirt and pressing her lips to his for a long moment.

She pulled away to regard him with amusement. "Why aren't you running away yet?” She chided, testing his consent by running her palm over his jaw down his strong neck, where his shirt gaped open. She fingered the first button, and it slid out of its coop, revealing the beginning of a hard chest underneath.

"I'd rather stay," he murmured assuredly.


	3. Chapter 3

It was easy to lose herself in the kiss because ohmygosh, when had she last kissed a man? Last kissed a man as first rate at kissing as this? He was certainly...experienced...and yet, there was no hint of following a familiar outline here. His kiss was aggressive, molten, cinders and smoke and maybe even some kind of laser light show going on behind him, or at least it was deserving of it. He smelled like clean laundry and woodsmoke and, curiously, hard work, his lapels crisp in her hands, and she had a short moment to wonder how in the hell this had happened to her. The milk jug wedged uncomfortably against her butt cheek and she heard the echoes of her own accusations directed at Chi Chi just an hour ago for setting her up with this man, when she had been working so hard to just remain merrily single.

And he was definitely all man, pressed up against the fridge as she was by him, milk jug sticking her in the butt and feeling altogether desirable under this man's mouth, his hands cupping her face. She certainly wasn't going to insert logic into this situation and risk popping it like a bubble. His warm hands held her face in a parody of affection as his mouth ransacked hers ruthlessly, and as it began its unhurried descent down the curve of her neck, she knew with gut-deep certainty that she was going to let this man undress her tonight. She was going to allow him to get between her recently shaved legs in a dance unfamiliar to her—but maybe not in her bed, maybe just on the couch like teenagers, because she didn't want to scare him away with the state of emergency her room was (always) in right now.

Vegeta's mouth was clean, his kiss smooth as water over stone, but electrifying, his tongue playing games with her own competitively, the flavorless ghost of vodka between them. How had she not realized it was a bad idea to open up a liquor bottle? It was making her consider crazy possibilities!

There was no mistaking that this man knew how to kiss. In fact, took great pride in it, probably. Her own hands crept up his chest and unbuttoned his shirt at the neckline, and she just kind of watched with bewilderment, shrinking away from these hands she just did not recognize anymore! Who was this smoky eyed, husky voiced vixen that his desire had transformed her into? Whose next move no doubt was to rip her own clothes off to reveal a leopard print bustier and garter before crooking her finger with a cat-eyed wink? She pressed her palm against Vegeta's hard chest and let out a little sigh through her nose as he tilted her head for better access. The man was magic, and she was his fool. It'd been too long, her body seethed. It was dragging her places she normally wouldn't venture to. Her heart was a vagabond, a wanderer, and it took her places that made other people, Chi Chi namely, cringe. But even she knew that sometimes it needed locked up and shut up.

But with the same mysterious speed that this man had gone from a 'No Fucking Way' in her little imaginary book of people she'd sleep with to a 'PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU TO,' the balmy heat between them evaporated as quickly as it had set itself upon them.

Regretfully—thankfully?—it was as Bulma touched the back of his neck tentatively, running her fingers over the hair there that jut stubbornly upwards, and he shivered, disengaging from their kiss slowly, stealing her breath as he fixed her with his own personal mixture of an icy, heated gaze, and she felt his fingers at her skirt zipper, her desire heavy, sitting on her chest...

When his hard thigh began vibrating against her own...

the unmistakable, annoying pulse of a cellphone. 

And, to her utter astonishment, he reached into his pocket and cooly answered it, turning away from her abruptly to talk about...stocks and shares?—Bulma's eyebrows twisted upwards—with his back to her, gesturing for privacy. At—Bulma gaped at the digital clock on the stove— _a quarter to midnight on a Saturday night._ She stood in the doorway of the open fridge, blinking like an idiot.

To her growing horror, Vegeta crisply delivered his advice on the price of letterhead as Bulma stared incredulously.

"Ohmygod, what am I doing," she mumbled to herself, before glancing at the fridge with confusion, her eyes wandering to the bottle of vodka on the counter he had placed beside them. Half gone.

She looked up at him, his broad shoulders and slender, compact waist, his pants handsomely skimming his round backside as though he'd come straight from a GQ photo shoot, and as he barked at whoever was on the other line about setting up an overflow account with 12% interest

Bulma

Became

Furious.

Vegeta slapped his phone shut, just as Bulma slammed shut the fridge door with a rattling clang. Remembering where he was, he turned around—

—to come face to face with Bulma's outraged face.

"Get out," she issued harshly.

Vegeta gave a slight shake of his head as though he hadn't understood. "Excuse me?"

"Tell me though, before you go," she spat, chomping on her stupid emotions like a bit, "how much of this do you need to entertain the idea of kissing me?" She held up the vodka.

"You weren't complaining a minute ago," he protested, features screwing with defensive anger, his smooth voice dragging over gravel as he became angered.

"I honestly didn't think that you would choose to answer a business call in the middle of an intimate moment!" She threw her arms up in the air.

"Oh, I see here." His face grew stormy as his voice became poisoned, and he coiled up, pointing his finger at her. "You think there's more to this than there really is." He laughed, a horrible thing. Bulma's heart crumpled up a little, her fury withering in the face of his rejection.

He continued, really on a roll now. "This," he pointed back and forth between them, "means nothing. That call from my assistant was far more important to me than kissing some tawdry mechanic—"

"Tawdry!" She cried out, insulted.

"...even if my assistant and I were just discussing card stock." He glowered down at her, surely feeling every inch a real conquering hero.

He met her stare confrontationally. Her vivid blue eyes were torn between frustration and pain, her hair spilling over her shoulders, her pale collarbones jutting out from her unbuttoned shirt, and for a brief moment, he regretted what he'd said, entertained smoothing it over so he could put his mouth on her again.

He just couldn't _tolerate_ it! He couldn't stand it when someone patronized him, let alone a woman with conceivably no ambition or personal success. He hadn't slaved his entire adult life to be in the position he was to listen to some insubordinate woman tell him how to do business. He deserved respect, always, even—especially—halfway to the bedroom.

He was sitting on his high horse now, his high horse balancing on another high horse beneath it. ”Don’t get a big head about my being here with you. You are one of many things to do on a Saturday night, the next of many Saturday night women to pen in my ledger," and he sneered, twisting the knife as he bit down on his own strange, flickering sense of disappointment with himself. He didn't...he didn't...like hurting her, though. 

"Do you really know what I want from you?" She answered neutrally, carefully. He watched her as she stood rigidly before him, before turning to stride to the front door, opening it in a clear indication that she expected him to leave. He narrowed his eyes at her and peered down his nose before stiffly walking towards her and the door.

He jumped when she put her hand on his sleeve, and they stared at each other, his jaw tight.

His proximity grated on her, his deep brown eyes staring at her severely from an impossibly handsome face. And for just a moment, she watched a flicker of guilt...followed by hope?...drift across his features.

Stupidly, a savage urge to kiss him goodbye filled her...and she impetuously, dumbly let it lead her to his mouth. She couldn't help wanting to taste it, again and maybe again, if she could help it, before she had to say goodbye forever. 

She barely had the room to be more shocked with herself when, after a moment, his mouth opened for hers, and with a clash, he swept his tongue deeply into her mouth, stubbornly plundering it even in the face of their absolute abhorrence of the other.

_This is unhealthy! This is unhealthy!_ Some part of her squealed in the far parts of her mind.

Stupidly, strangely, impossibly, there was a part of her that couldn't stand to see him go, and it was that insane impulsive part of her that pressed herself closer to him even as **‘DANGER, DANGER’** flashed red through her mind. She was playing with fire, and at any moment he would burst into flames and consume her with a fine tuned understanding of the weapons of emotional and verbal abuse.

He certainly didn't deserve it, her kissing him like this, but in light of all of it, the more defiant she became, and she dispatched any lingering protests by yanking on his collar and burying her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck to deepen the kiss.

He rolled her out of the doorway smoothly, and with a slight 'oomph,' he pressed her back up against the wall and scoured her mouth, quietly reaching out and closing her front door.

Her body, wracked with rebellious desire, ignited with agreement, and she undid the buttons quickly on his shirt as they kissed the other frantically. He grabbed at her hand as his shirt gaped open with her progress, pressing it against the wall and sending her a heated, smoky promise of devourment from beneath his lashes. He had strong, neat eyebrows, and they dipped gracefully as his other hand appeared and lightly freed one of her buttons from its hole. 

"I want your skin in my mouth," he confided, before feeling a warring alarm in his belly at the outburst. He hadn't intended to say that; it felt like much more of a confession than stock dirty talk. Bulma's eyes rolled upwards as his mouth trailed along her collar, and a jolt of jagged heat rooted in her core sent its clawed fire up into her belly, along her chest, and into her fingertips.

"I want you," she moaned, and despite her vulnerability at the admission it was impossible to contain. Had it just been so long? She felt as though she were in the path of a tidal wave of rabid need, on the verge of a primal urge to submit herself to him in otherwise really embarrassing ways.

"What am I to you?" He growled from beneath her as his tongue licked up her throat, his fingers on her pulse at her wrist, still held firmly against the wall.

"What?" She breathed, confused, as his other hand skimmed her hip and, to her depraved thrill, drew her leg up at the back of her knee, ran along the curve of her ass and along her thighs.

"What were you going to say? When I was about to leave?" His rough voice forced her eyes open with its penetrative need and she was relieved and curious to see that he looked as far gone as she.

Her lids lowered as she considered what to say.

"That you aren't even a blip in my radar," she finished, setting her jaw firmly.

He knocked her bare foot to the side with his own and planted his knee between hers.

The sudden heat of his thigh against her core sent heat into her cheeks, and she looked up at him with vulnerability as he gazed down at her.

And set his mouth against hers savagely.

"I don't know why I want you," she spoke into his mouth frantically. "You drive me crazy. All I ask is that you don't bitch about the chocolate chip cookie crumbs in my bed."

And to his bafflement, he replied silkily, "Good. You've laid out the red carpet for me." He tugged at the underwear at her hip. "Now I won't have to get out of bed for my after-sex snack."

She laughed, this carousing, sibilant chime that sent something young inside him burbling to the surface, and then began tugging him to the bedroom by the front of his pants. "Better rethink that buddy," she laughed, and this unfamiliar excitement careened through him. "I don't share my chocolate chip cookies."

He stopped her in the hallway, pinning her against the wall to strip her of her bra and rub the hard length in his slacks against her.

"Nobody denies me chocolate chip cookies," he whispered into her ear before tearing his shirt off.

* * *

He blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

He sat up abruptly, and looked first thing at the bedroom door. Vegeta jumped up and jabbed the lock in, and spun around to regard what he knew with increasing anxiety awaited him.

The late morning sunlight was bright through the sheer curtains, and he squinted against it as he took in the messy blue mane of curls, the pale arm thrown over the pillow, with grim acknowledgment. The rest of her was wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets, thick enough that she'd probably survive a pretty steep fall, her legs sprawled out behind her and her body nearly sideways on the bed. She hadn't budged since he got up. That explained the crook in his back.

He heard voices from the other side of the door from the kitchen. He must have woke up when he sensed someone enter the apartment.

"What a mess," came the muffled, disdainful voice of Goku's girlfriend. "What on Earth did she do, get trashed and have a tantrum?"

"Do you want me to sweep up?" He heard Goku ask good-naturedly.

The harpy sighed. "Yes, please. Ugh, what a mess. No matter how hard I try I cannot get that girl to grow up."

Vegeta snorted.

He glanced at the clock on the night stand. It was nearly noon. He began to feel very self-conscious with Goku and Chi Chi on the other side of the door and with… _her_ …just a few feet away. He plodded to the bed, and looked around.

He filled with dread.

Where the hell were his clothes?

_Bulma's breath against his mouth, her hands running down his sweaty chest and gripping his smooth face as they kissed, listing backwards until her back hit the bedroom door. His hands palmed her breasts, and he wrapped her legs around his hip, grinding against her as he yanked her shirt from her arms._

_"Ah!" She cried. "This is Chi Chi's. Weren't you satisfied ripping the buttons off your own shirt?"_

_"No," he admitted darkly._

He blushed unnaturally, remembering. Well, that explained where his clothes were—flung around from here to the front door. He noticed her panties were thrown onto her desk, lying limply on top of a stack of aged VW service manuals. Her bra hung over the lamp shade. He couldn't remember how either of them had got there.

"Where the hell are my clothes?" He grit.

"Bulma?" Chi Chi yelled, stamping down the hall before banging on the door. "Are you in there?"

"Go away," came Bulma's groggy, muffled voice, her arm snaking out and chucking the nearest item at the bedroom door without even looking at it, which bounced off the door next to him with a squeak.

A cat toy.

As if summoned, a chubby black cat raced out from under the bed and leapt on the toy, before rolling onto its back clumsily, trying to juggle the toy in its round paws.

The cat finally seemed to notice him, and turned its gold eyes on him.

Vegeta cupped himself instinctively.

He looked up at Bulma helplessly, but she had returned to the way he'd found her, buried securely under a dozen blankets.

Where the fuck were his clothes?

_Her slick hips bucking against his, sweat pooling in her naval as she groaned his name..._

He ran his hand through his hair in wild frustration.

_...Sweeping his arm across the table and heaving her up onto the desk top before pulling his undershirt from the waist of his pants and dropping his trousers..._

_"I'm confused," she’d panted as his lips traced up her thighs, which yawned open for him. "Why do you...like me..."_

_He pressed his hips against her and her eyes widened. It suddenly because very clear how interested in her he was._

_He leaned over her, staring at her intensely. "Shut up," he said, before sinking to his knees and burying his face between her legs with such fevered intent that any fear that he was trolling her flew right out of her empty head—_

Goku's clothes! They were in the living room, disregarded on the couch cushions. Damnet. With a mixture of awkwardness and apprehension, he moved to her dresser, where he quietly upended her drawers, poking around for something unisex he could put on to escape.

_The curl of her lip as she ground against him, her arms wrapped tight around his neck as she urged him harder..._

He pulled the sweats over his legs, leg hair catching on the gray terry cloth before shrugging on an extra large blue hoodie with a stain—grease? chocolate?—across the breast.

He heard the tinkle of glass falling into the wastebasket.

The vodka. He vaguely remembered shoving it off the countertop with a tremor as she surprised him at the fridge with her warm mouth on his member, later that night when he went looking for some bottled water.

The second time he'd tossed her onto the couch and buried himself into her from the side of it.

He grimaced.

No more vodka. Never again.

"It smells like a drunk in here," he heard Chi Chi complain.

"Give her a break," Goku encouraged her gently. "Everyone needs to let off a little steam sometimes."

"I don't feel the need to make a scene at a nice restaurant and take it out on my best friends home decor," Chi Chi grumbled.

"Look, I've got to run, Cheech. I've got a game at noon." There was a pause, the smack of a light kiss. "Why don't you go in there and talk to her? Tell her how you feel, but hear how she's feeling too? Walk a mile in her shoes, you know?"

"Thanks, Goku," he heard the woman murmur begrudgingly before giggling. "Stop, you're messing up my hair."

He had to get out of here!

Vegeta glanced frantically around the room, before peeking out the window sheers that he absently noted were little boy's draperies, complete with race cars and rocket ships. He had to get out of here _now_.

"Cheech, I really have to go. I'm starving, and I want to eat before the game," Goku whined flirtatiously, and Vegeta rolled his eyes. He really didn't want to know what Son Goku's bedroom voice sounded like.

"Come on, I'll walk you down," his woman said playfully, and as Vegeta's heart leapt in his chest hopefully, he heard the front door click shut, followed by thick silence.

Vegeta could hardly move fast enough. He stuffed his bare feet in his shoes and yanked open Bulma's door without sparing the burrito of blankets a passing glance. He then sprinted out to the living room, where he immediately recognized his shirt stuffed between the fridge and the stainless steel microwave. He snatched it and balled it up, shoving it between his arm and side, and then scurried to the hallway and grabbed the pants that had been eagerly discarded outside her bedroom door. Giving the living room a cursory glance, and having his necessary apparel accounted for, Vegeta sidled up to the front door and listened for noise on the other side. Nothing. Slowly, he turned the knob, waited a second, and then peeked out. The hall was silent and empty. Vegeta rushed out, slamming the door behind him, twisted around in the hall a few times on his hunt for the fire escape, and shot down the dark stairs with unexamined anxiety.

No more vodka. Never again.

 

* * *

Chi Chi opened her front door with a sigh, eyes raking over the place judgmentally. She just couldn't understand what was going through Bulma's head. It was like the harder she tried to help her friend, the more of a mess Bulma made! Chi Chi sighed again, this time more loudly as she surveyed the couch cushions littered on the living room floor, two glass tumblers awry on the table.

Chi Chi's eyes opened wide. Two glasses?

And between the end table and the arm of the suede couch, a lone piece of evidence that Bulma hadn't been alone last night:

A sleek black tie.

Chi Chi held her breath, and then looked up, down the hall at her friends door with confusion. It wasn't like Bulma to bring a man home.

For just a moment, Chi Chi remembered the last man Bulma had been seen with who had also been wearing a tie. Her breath froze in her lungs.

But there was just _no_ way….In fact, the last person Bulma had been with intimately was...well, that was years ago, and that had been a serious relationship that had lasted many years. And even as she considered the possibility, the other man ghosted in her mind, and she shut down the possibility with the force of an iron door, and a few more iron doors and a tangle of barbed wire fence for good measure. Even if her friend had been capable, he was not. She couldn't even picture it.

Worry coursed through her for a moment. Had Bulma brought some strange man home that could have gone through their stuff and stolen all her jewelry and good silverware? Was he in there with her now, pocketing Chi Chi's valuables?

Chi Chi couldn't have moved fast enough. She had Bulma's door open in the blink of an eye, and she raked over her friend's room with alarm. Everything looked normal—trashed, in other words. Candy wrappers and styrofoam cups from her friend's favorite gas station, the one she got her Pepsi's from religiously every morning and evening. Chi Chi remembered because Bulma occasionally gossiped about the clerk's colorful love life. Cautiously, she inched over to her friend’s side, characteristically wrapped up in nine different blankets, four of them with children's cartoon characters printed all over them. One she was pretty certain she got from some wandering Native American and his mutt that stopped by to have his rust bucket looked at last year; Chi Chi had washed the damn thing half a dozen times, to Bulma's irritation, suspecting fleas.

"Bulma?" She asked, poking her friend's shoulder. "Are you alone?"

There was a faraway groan, and the blankets shifted slightly.

"Bulma?"

The blankets rustled some more, the toes curling on the foot that poked from the sprawl, letting her know her friend was, indeed, inside.

Slowly, Bulma pulled the blankets down to reveal a pair of sleepy eyes and a matted mess of teal hair.

"Good morning," Chi Chi greeted with evident disapproval. "Rough night?"

Bulma looked past Chi Chi sleepily and frowned with confusion. "No, why?" Only for her eyes to widen exponentially. "Ohmygod."

"Just what the hell happened last night?" Chi Chi demanded, frustration bubbling over as she watched her friend sit up in bed abruptly and feel around her under the blankets, patting frantically around her. "Did you come home and get wasted? Or were you already drunk by the time you got home?" She accused. 

Bulma's head snapped up and she glared at her friend. "What's your deal? Why are you all over my ass lately?"

"What's my deal? Why am I _'all over your ass?'_ I'm just trying to make sure you stay all in one piece!"

"Oh, yeah," Bulma agreed mockingly, "because how on earth could I make it without you to hold my hand?"

Chi Chi straightened angrily. "Sometimes you can be so immature!"

"Yeah, well, sometimes I wish you would quit sublimating your desperation for Goku to propose to you onto me or whatever!" Bulma hid her head back under the covers. "If you came in here to yell at me, kindly see yourself out!"

Chi Chi stared with barely controlled frustration at the blankets that hid Bulma, and remembered Goku's advice. _"Tell her how you feel, but hear how she's feeling too? Walk a mile in her shoes, you know."_

She sighed reproachfully and plopped down on her friend's bed, gazing at the wall, its pretty robin's egg blue paint marred with greasy fingerprints and cracked plaster, remnants of a time before Chi Chi set up ground rules about working on engines in the house. "Don't you have a whole shop for this kind of stuff?" Chi Chi had screeched as her blue haired friend looked up warily from her project beneath her bulky safety glasses.

Maybe she was just approaching this the wrong way.

"Bulma...what's going on with you? Truthfully...Is it me? Are you, like, rebelling against me? Are you...upset with me?"

Bulma peeked out from the covers again. "Why are you always trying to fix me? Why aren't I good enough for you?" Her voice was hoarse and muffled against the blankets.

Chi Chi gazed at her with regret. "Now, Bulma, I like you just the way you are-"

"Bullshit." Bulma's eyes narrowed and she turned over. Bulma may have been selective about her priorities—cars and chocolate waffle cones first, replacing the empty toilet paper roll much farther down on the list—but she wasn't stupid. It was easy to forget that, because Bulma was just so easy going. Much like Goku.

Chi Chi swallowing a protest, and tried again for understanding. "I can see why you think I'm trying to 'change' you—" 

Her friend blew a raspberry into the covers.

“--but I'm doing it to help you. Look at you! Your room is a mess! Last night was a mess! My kitchen and living room are a mess! Your love life is—" Chi Chi choked on her words just as her friend whipped back around.

"What?" She snapped. "Go ahead and finish. Is that what you really think of me? That I'm a mess? That I'm not complete without a man and daydreams of romance? That I'm not grown up without some designer furniture and the need to be seen at the coolest bars in town among a bunch of snotty lawyers? Let me tell you something, Chi Chi, this is what I think. You grew up a pampered, spoiled only child of a very restrictive single father. You had a closet full of dresses, a room full of dolls and doll houses, your bed was a fake castle, your head full of romance and privilege. In return, he expected you to grow up nurturing so you'd take care of him. Freud, much? Who can say. Anything less than an A was grounds for something worse than his disappointment—your diminished self worth. I get it. You pursued your internalized father's pride your whole life, I get it. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, right?"

Chi Chi gaped.

"Some of us, however, didn't grow up believing being a tidy ball buster were the tell tales of superiority. Some of us were raised in our father's grungy workspaces, following our heads second, our hearts first. When I opened up my shop," Bulma continued raggedly, "I was the happiest I'd ever been. I finally found what I'd wanted to do this whole time, after a decade spent waffling and wasting in higher education. I wake up every day at 5 am and come home every day at 8 working my ass off to keep my shop afloat because it's what I _love to do_. I am a hard working woman in a field of men and have been modestly, satisfyingly successful. The fact that I eat animal crackers for dinner doesn't diminish that. The fact that I'm not afraid to walk into a Go Chicken Go and order a bucket of fried chicken and watch Alien by myself on a Saturday night doesn't diminish my value as a woman. But for some reason it does affect the way my best friend sees me. If my best friend can't be happy with me, despite that a Friday spent in front of the tv is a victimless crime, despite that I'm a successful business owner...how can I call her a friend?"

Bulma stared at Chi Chi plaintively from over her Transformers blanket, her unflagging expression giving Chi Chi no quarter for excuses.

Chi Chi felt her eyes water. Bulma never talked to her like this. Her friend was usually very forgiving.

Chi Chi cleared her throat, her voice trembling on her lips. "I deserved that. I'm sorry, B. I never intended to make you feel bad about yourself. I just thought I could help, make you happier."

"I don't need help, Cheech." Bulma said gently. "I need your unequivocal, unconditional support."

Bulma opened her arms forgivingly and Chi Chi laid down next to her heavily. The women lay there in swollen silence.

"Why can't you just accept that you're going to be my domestic partner for the rest of your life?" Bulma asked, smiling at the top of her friend's head.

The women giggled.

"I'm sorry I set you up with Vegeta. He's an asshole." Chi Chi finally commiserated. Bulma stiffened.

"Yep." Bulma finally agreed, neutrally. "Forget about it."

"Goku was telling me about how much of a hard ass at work he can be. I guess he's really good at what he does, though. He spends all his time at work, very ambitious, and hard working. Occasionally he goes out with the guys, the bachelors of the firm, you know, Nappa and Bardock and Turles, and they always complain that he doesn't know how to cut loose. He's all work, no play," Chi Chi gossiped quietly, flicking her silky bangs out of her eyes.

Bulma snorted. "I can believe it." _Although he certainly knows how to cut loose in bed,_ she thought, remembering him pumping beneath her with a dark smirk in the moonlight. Her face heated. Oh god.

"So what happened? Did you go to a bar last night and hook up with someone?" Chi Chi flipped around to face Bulma. "I saw the tie on the couch. I'm kind of surprised you'd be interested in a guy who has to wear one, honestly."

Bulma looked back at her fearfully.

"You hooked up with someone," Chi Chi guessed, eyes gleaming. "You got lucky! Oh my, how long's it been? Like millennia? Did he have to pull out the oil to lubricate all the rusty parts down there?"

"Ohmygawddddd," Bulma moaned with anguish into her blankets before trying to kick Chi Chi off the bed, burying her flushing face into her pillow. "Get out." 

"Oh my god, am I laying in the bed you guys did it in?" Chi Chi shot up. "Eeeew, was that your guys post coital sweat I was laying in!" She shrieked.

"Only you would call it 'post coital,'" Bulma complained, certain she was going to die of mortification at any moment.

"I've got to take a shower now. Ew." She shivered dramatically, heading for the door. "How did you hide all the cookie crumbs from him? I know you spent all Friday night eating cookies and playing sudoku in bed."

Bulma watched Chi Chi make her way down the hall to her room with renewed energy, balance restored between them, gut churning as she recalled Vegeta's long, slow strokes inside her, his stomach rippling with the movement, his eyes pinning her against her Rainbow Bright sheets. Sweat beaded in her hair, and her hips swayed to meet his, her bed creaking with the force of his controlled movements as he leaned down, brushing her lips with his own, his lips trailing to her ear and giving her goosebumps as he whispered dangerously, " _Nobody_ denies me chocolate chip cookies."


	4. Chapter 4

Vegeta's fingertips rapped on the long oak desk as his mouth curled with sadistic pleasure. "Good. Tell them I'll be coming after the Bentley's, next," he said into the phone. "It's an open and closed case. In fact, I don't want to hear any more about it. Tell him if he wants to pursue it any longer or if he's going to email me with anymore of his contrived blackmail, all of his messages will be redirected to the West City Department of Waste Management. Got it?" Someone choked out an agreement on the other line. "Good," he purred, before sitting the phone back in its cradle on the desk and standing up to pull on his suit jacket.

His eyes raked over the magnificent cityscape from the wide window on the 14th floor with apathy, and he pocketed his cellphone and grabbed the handle of his briefcase. He strode from his office and barely registered his secretary jump out of her seat to scamper after him. "The Freeman memo is on my desk," he said without slowing his stride or looking her way as he headed for the elevator.

"Mr. No'Ouji, wait," she pleaded, struggling to meet his stride. Vegeta's cool mask disintegrated and he turned an unrepentant scowl at his pretty, young intern, who looked back at him fearfully. "Um, Mr. No'Ouji, this was just faxed over from Goldman's office."

"What is it," he snapped, giving the papers a look of viperous dislike. He really didn't want to deal with any more work tonight. He'd been here since 5 am, going over this damn case so he could bury the damn thing already, and now he was going home to take a hot shower before he had to get up early in the morning to get in and out of the gym before his 8 am meeting.

"Um, it's about the Freeman case," she issued weakly.

He snarled.

He was getting very tired of this suit. It should have been in the bag already, but every time he'd kill it, the defense's reprisals at their last breath, something would revive it and he'd be staring down a whole new chimera.

His eyes scanned the fax trembling in her hands. ”Juuhachigou from Turtle and Kame?" Vegeta's frown deepened and his eyes actually met hers, causing his secretary's heart to pitter patter at an even more alarming rate. "What in the hell does that harpy Juuhachigou want with the Freeman case?" Before she could even attempt to offer an answer, West City's top attorney had ripped the fax out of her hands, his eyes back and forth over the text before quickly rolling it up with a deep growl. He cursed viciously, causing his secretary to flinch.

She watched the sinfully gorgeous man stride out of the office and into the elevators opposite without even acknowledging her or saying farewell, only slamming the door behind him, and she let out a breath she'd hadn't known she'd been holding before bursting into tears and rushing to her desk to pack her things for real this time.

The man barely knew she existed, but when he did, it always ended up with her questioning why she even bothered existing. No one in the office dared to speak to him, except for the partners of the firm, who took all his chilly demands and icy dismissals in stride.

How could someone so excessively handsome be so heartbreakingly uncivilized?

The pressure from her parents for her to become a paralegal really wasn't worth this.

* * *

Warm oil dripped onto Bulma's forehead, and she swiped at it with the back of her gloved hand, managing only to smear it across her temple as she bit her tongue and cranked the socket wrench as hard as she could. With a crack, the nut broke off the bolt and clattered to the floor, and Bulma let loose a string of curses before dropping her wrench beside her and grabbing for a replacement oil pan. It seemed like every time someone brought in one of these old Fox's they were far more work than they were worth, and her boots clattered against the grating of the lift as she scooted down a bit to get a better grip on the last bolt. Her stomach rumbled ominously, reminding her it was past time to eat dinner, and reluctantly, she told it to shut its trash hole as she spent yet another long night at work.

"I aught to just put up a sign that says I charge triple for these stupid lemons, motherfff—“ The bell above the front door distantly clanged. "We're closed,” she called. "These stupid, ugh—" her wrench slipped again—"pain in the ass—" She grabbed for her mallet, and with a hint of guilt for taking the easy way out which would most certainly damage the part she was trying to preserve, started smacking her frustrations out on the rusted last bolt. “Motherfucking—“

Someone cleared their throat impatiently, and far under the car she barked, "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Ah!" She hollered as the last bolt snapped off and shot off down the chassis and clattered onto the floor, a cloud of dust and debris falling thickly onto her face. Bulma sputtered, clenched her eyes, and scooted her butt off the lift, hopping down and making her way to the nearby sink, where she snatched a towel and rubbed at her face vigorously. "Ugh!" She exclaimed with disgust, and wiped her fingers of the worst of the oil before throwing the towel into the can and turning toward the intruder with frustration.

"Can I help...you," she finished lamely as she came face to face with the last person she wanted to see.

Vegeta looked at her from across the room with amusement, an eyebrow inching up as he leaned a little too dapperly against the counter that separated her garage from the waiting area.

"Indeed," he replied with cool measure, his expression neutral. "Do you have a minute?" His tone brokered no room for negotiation.

"What do you want?" She walked toward him frowning, and as she leaned forward and looked up at him from the other side of the counter, Vegeta was struck with an unfamiliar pang of...something. Her frazzled blue curls were pinned back in a tight, thick bun at the nape of her neck, strands rebelling all around. Her blue eyebrows were arched with cautious curiosity, her creamy skin slick with sweat and marred with streaks of oil around her hairline that had stubbornly evaded the towel. She was dressed in baggy, dirty gray-blue coveralls, her name embroidered across one breast with her shop name against the other, her thick soled boots toeing the floors impatiently. For the first time that he could ever really recall, Vegeta thought that the woman before him was stunningly beautiful. He hadn't known that the word was even in his vocabulary.

She frowned deeply in consideration before a smile lazed over her face. "Couldn't get enough, huh?"

He snorted derisively. "Hardly," he bit out with excessive force. He froze her with a look of sharp purpose. "I came here because of this." He unceremoniously shoved a roll of papers in her face, and she looked wide eyed at him before scanning the text. Her eyebrows inched up with each passing second.

"Oh, wow," she breathed. When she looked up at him, a smile stretched across her face. "This is awesome."

Vegeta growled and snatched the papers away. "Did you do this?"

She looked at him with startled amusement. "No," she answered sweetly and unapologetically insincere. "I have no idea why she'd get involved."

"I want to know who in this neighborhood is stirring up trouble. I swear, if this is your doing—“

"Are you threatening me?" She hissed, moving around the counter to confront him and shoving her gloved knuckles onto her hips.

"And what if I am?" He replied dangerously. "I could have this whole block wiped out if I wanted to. I am, after all, the bit player in the Congressman's legal retinue. Then where would you be?"

Her eyes glittered with malice, and she clenched her teeth squarely. "Listen here, you overbearing little squirt, there are more than enough tools in this shop to kill you with—"

"You didn't think I was so little Saturday night," he retorted rakishly.

To his surprise, Bulma's small fist gripped his suit jacket lapel, and she grit up into his face. "If you think for a moment you can threaten me, I will have every law firm set on you like vultures on carrion to take Bardock Vejita and Sons down. If you think for a moment that I am some naive bucktoothed backwoods little girl pretending to play hard ball, think again. I have a very personal relationship with Baba, Korin, Juuhachigou, Turtle and Capsule Corporation litigators, and I will have your career and reputation smeared across the pavement," she seethed into his face as he bared his own teeth at her, their eyes boring into one another's.

"Try me," he seethed back.

"Is this man causing you trouble, Miss Bulma?" A warbling voice issued behind him, and Bulma's eyes flicked over Vegeta's shoulder, her grip loosening on his suit.

"This man couldn't hurt me if he tried." She sent Vegeta a loaded glance, and in so doing earned a string of nasty curses from inside Vegeta's head.

Vegeta smoothed his shirt and turned around to see a wrinkled old man with a painfully bent back and ashy, dark skin observing him and the infuriating woman. Vegeta held back a barely restrained snort. It was as if everything was sent topsy turvy with his proximity to this woman, careening towards a Feast of Fools where his power suddenly meant nothing and his subordinates mocked him with a parody of pleasantness.

"You sure you don't need me to walk him out?"

This time Vegeta did snort, and he crossed his arms and walked to the other side of the room with his back to them doggedly. Bulma shot him a dirty look and turned to the old man. "It's no problem, Eddy. I'm getting ready to lock up now," she reassured him.

"I just thought I'd check up on you," he said firmly, sending the visitor another assessing look before tipping his hat to her. "Another late night for ya I see. Well, we'll see you tomorrow."

"Alright, Eddy. Thanks. Tell your wife I said hi, and thank her for the cookies. They were heavenly," she smiled, walking him out the door.

The old man chuckled as he walked out the doorway. "Yes ma'am. You know she has a hard time sharing them with me when she makes 'em, but she always shares 'em with you."

Vegeta heard Bulma call out bye and watched her wave out of the corner of his eye. He had just a second to inspect the photos and rummage through the various debris on the countertops and walls.

It didn't take long for his heart to jump into his throat. He moved his face closer to the framed portrait and blinked. There it was, undeniably—a photo of Bulma when she was a plucky teenager, holding a giant check next to a stout man with thick glasses beneath a Capsule Corporation banner. The check was made out to her for the sum of twenty thousand dollars, and in the notes, "From the Peabody School of Astrophysics and Engineering." Next to this astounding record of achievement were four more: each a diploma, at the doctorate level, all dated a decade ago or more in different fields of hard science. Next to the grubby, blocky phone were framed lesser-certificates for automotive, collision repair, welding and restoration, and as he turned back to the dirty little woman with an open jaw, he wondered just who in the hell he was dealing with.

But as she turned back to him, a frown marring her pretty little features, he didn't get the chance to ask.

"Is that your Type 14 coupe out there?" She hooked her thumb at the doorway, her tone surprisingly balking.

Instantly, Vegeta's growing frustration with the night melted, and a slow, impish smile unfolded over his face.

"Why, yes," he drawled, picking up his briefcase and sauntering over to her before standing beside her, his chest and face just inches away from her. “Yes, it is. I told you I was a man of good taste," he purred, dipping his head down to look at her from under his lashes boyishly.

He opened the door with his arm, his waspish smile growing as he nodded towards the door. She responded with a smile of her own, and she turned, walking out the door under his arm to inspect the svelte, cream colored VW Karmann Ghia in the streetlight, glittering. She crossed her arms and paced around it, peering into the windows, Vegeta's pleasure growing as he saw her eyebrows rise fractionally upon viewing the restored, pristine burgundy leather interior.

"May I?" She called, rounding the back of the car and lingering, waiting for his okay.

He frowned slightly, maybe uncertainly, before nodding. If there was any woman he could trust touching his car, it was probably her.

She reached down and popped the trunk open, where, to her delight, a shiny air-cooled engine sat neatly tucked into the back hatch.

She looked up at him with barely restrained eagerness. "I pinned you for a sports car kind of guy, but this is only a size 1200 cubic centimeter engine." She fixed him with gleaming eyes, and he realized with confusion that he'd moved closer to her as he stared down at her delicate, round face. "I could put a 1600 in her for you. Your gas mileage wouldn't suffer too much, and you could at least drive on the freeway then. You know. If you'd like."

He watched her wrestle with her desire to share her love of cars with him and her increasing certainty that it was a risk to do so. She chewed on her lip subconsciously, and he watched her do it, until she blushed, and he realized what he'd been doing.

There was something in him that jumped at the opportunity to surprise her. "I'd rather have coffee with you first. Don't you think swapping out my engine is jumping the gun a bit?" He smiled as she flushed a deep scarlet, knowing full well that they'd already jumped the gun Saturday night, and she angled her head to the side to hide it.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was turning her face back to his with his fingertips and pressing his molten smile against that bottom lip lightly, relishing it more than he cared to admit. After a moment, she returned the kiss slightly.

"Meet me for a coffee tomorrow at 6 at The Roasterie. Then we can discuss this debacle of a case." He looked at her pointedly, and she returned his serious mien.

"I will not buckle on this, Vegeta," she said firmly, looking up into his dark eyes in the streetlight.

He looked down his nose at her before blowing a chuckle out between his lips, and moved to open his car door, tucking his briefcase into the sliver of a backseat. He moved toward her again and gazed down at her with rare consideration. "I don't want you to," he admitted gruffly, before running his thumb lightly down her jaw and turning away to slide into the drivers seat.

The decades old sports car started up smoothly, aside from the characteristic air-cooled clacking that Bulma had grown to love over the years. Vegeta shut his door and rolled down the window.

"Tomorrow. Six o'clock. Don't be late." He demanded gruffly, before tilting back his head with a devilish smile and setting the car into gear.

"I told you I have good taste," he crooned, fixing her with a very self-satisfied smile, and took off out of her small, weedy parking lot and down the street, leaving her blushing in her coveralls, her thumb on her cheek where his had been, watching the Ghia's red tail lights winking down the dark, industrial street with wonder.

There was an echoing clang to her left, and she turned to see Eddy packing up his painter's ladders and giving her a coy wink from his wrinkled face. She bolted back inside and closed the shop door staunchly behind her.

* * *

Chi Chi frowned down at her computer, her pen rapping the keyboard. She was in a pickle. She didn't know how he had gotten her email, but he had, and he was hitting right to the heart of the matter.

She chewed the top of her pen.

She placed the pen between her teeth buccaneer-style to free her hands, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and put her long fingers to the keyboard.

_I really can't speak for Bulma, but I will let her know that you would like to see her._

She stared at the screen uneasily and then preceded to tap the backspace button.

She began again, this time more animatedly.

_With all due respect, I really don't think it's my job to play middleman between you and Bulma regarding a relationship I really have no understanding of, and I resent you sending this email._

She worried her lip and, again, hit delete uncomfortably.

That was too mean. Even if it was what Bulma wished she'd say.

Her cell began chiming, and seeing it was 'Goku Bby' followed by multiple heart emoticons (something she would take TO THE GRAVE), she picked it up.

"Hey, you," she answered.

"Hey," his sunny voice sang clearly. "What's up?"

She sighed. "Not working. Don't tell anyone."

Goku laughed on the other end of the line. "Your secret's safe with me."

She sighed again, her eyes pinned to her computer screen. "Goku...I need some advice."

"What's up?"

"I..." She stared at the white screen, the small black text, sitting innocuously in her inbox.

_Chi Chi, how are things? It's been a long time! I hope all is well with you and yours. I miss the heck out of your Dad's waffles. ;)_

_I've met your new man, Son Goku! We play baseball with each other often in this new league, believe it or not. He seems like a real good guy. Very funny. I'm happy for you._

"It's nothing," she told him.

"Are you sure?"

For all his unrivaled and unfathomable good cheer, Goku was acutely aware of the subtleties of things, and that was, in part, why things worked out so well between them. He balanced her usually uptight and critical nature, which seemed to worm its way into her life through her work life, with something pure and well-meaning. He was also able to read people very well. That sensitivity and patience towards her black mood swings sealed the deal as far as finding someone that could withstand her, and see that underneath all of her overreactions to stress, she was really just a silly girl. Albeit an uptight one. Like Bulma, he was able to bring that out in her, and she loved him for it.

However, his keen perception of people really came out when he was competing in one of the many sports leagues he poured himself into in his spare time, which was probably for the best, given Chi Chi's dense schedule. She deeply appreciated that they so far could both maintain and thrive on their independence without drifting too far apart as a couple.

Though, to tell the truth, she had given thought to what things would be like if work wasn't a priority for her….Lots of thought about if she had time to settle down and have children….

She wondered, not for the first time, if Goku would mind giving up his career to be a stay-at-home father. She knew he wasn't really emotionally invested in his job—had, in fact, only pursued it because an injury to his hip that meant he couldn't compete professionally. He'd been fortunate and had been offered a job by his uncle to make use of his measly law degree. (Which he'd only entertained so that he could play college sports legitimately. Of course.)

Goku had too much of his Grandpa in him for the lawyer lifestyle, though. Goku's grandfather had raised him after his mother died when he was still very young; while his father had grieved by ignoring the role of fatherhood completely and spending his every waking moment becoming West City's fiercest lawyer. Goku's grandfather, though, was a jolly old man who cared more about home life than work life, and had inadvertently imbued the same qualities in Goku.

Chi Chi wasn't sure how it happened, but the two people that were closest to her were so unlike her.

Although Bulma's vagabond heart was tempered by her mechanical prowess and a take-no-prisoners competitiveness that buoyed her in a field of prejudiced men, Goku's was tempered by the love of his friends, his interests, and his loved ones. She suspected he thought his friends and loved ones wanted him to advance as a paralegal. But Chi Chi had the sense to know that Goku's own heart did not take him to the junction of justice and law, and in fact, the only reason he was still even in the field was because of his damned internal compass that always directed him to do the right thing. The 'right' thing was to make his father and uncle—and, she suspected, herself—happy, since he couldn't do what he really wanted anyhow.

But, if Chi Chi offered him another choice, would he find the 'right' thing elsewhere was more fulfilling?

If Chi Chi provided Bulma another choice—indirectly!—would her friend find her own fulfillment from someone she didn't even know she was missing out on?

She just wanted the best for her friend, and to do the right thing once in awhile. It wasn't even really manipulating events behind anyone's back if all she did was haphazardly reintroduce them to one another, right?

And to think she and Bulma might be able to settle down together at the same time, if all went well!

"It's nothing, really," Chi Chi answered, resolved. "Hey, I was wondering if you'd mind if Bulma and I dropped by the game Friday night? You'll be playing the East City Titans, right?"

"Yeah! I'd love it if you could make it. Are you sure you don't have to work late?"

"No. I wouldn't miss it," she answered softly, plans settling into place.

"Great. I can't wait. I think the guys mentioned going, too. I'll see you tonight?"

"Are you making wontons?"

"Yep. We just have to head to the store beforehand."

"Bulma will be happy to hear it.” Chi Chi set her fingers to typing furiously before Goku even disconnected.

_This is for your own good, Bulma Briefs._

* * *

It was only after Bulma had picked up her underwear from off the floor and after a lot of cursing and twirling around that she found her flip flops tucked under the bed and realized that this might have been a bad idea. Outside, on the balcony, she could hear Vegeta's rumbling, deep voice as he snapped at someone about a document that had to be stamped and mailed by 7:30 that morning—less than six hours away.

She really couldn't explain how they'd ended up this way. Again. She had met him for coffee as promised Tuesday evening and they'd wound up making out desperately in the alley between the coffee bar and a record shop. Nothing had even been resolved between them about the case, as little as Bulma had a hand in it anyway. They'd argued, like usual, and he had to know by now how she felt about the debacle and why only a terrible person would prosecute the case. In return, he'd called her a slew of names all revolving around her being a tree-hugging socialist nitwit and had asked her venomously just how in the hell a small business owner could be such a bleeding heart red-flag waving shame.

They had thrown on their jackets and scarves—he looking too dashing and subdued in his for her comfort—and had walked outside to continue their conversation over a cigarette. Only for her to end up pushed up against the wall under the onslaught of the sexiest, most exacting thigh-rubbing kiss she'd ever had in her life.

She was still surprised he hadn't had anything to say about doing it in her VW bus—really surprised—which had a lot more room than his Ghia, she supposed. She hadn't messed around with someone in a car since she was sixteen and let Brad Ersley touch her boobs in his Ford Mustang. Yeah, those were the glory days.

Despite the body wracking orgasm she'd had underneath him on the floor of her bus, her palm shoved against the wall and the other looped tightly around his neck, she hadn't expected him to come calling again tonight, because, well, hello—West City's best lawyer (cue eye roll) had let himself be reduced to a fuck in a rusty '67 van in a well-lit parking lot. She really hadn't expected him to be a happy camper about that one; the man's pride was stupidly enormous. Almost as big as, well, you know. But then again, she hadn't expected him to come by the shop Monday...or to tell the truth, even stay the night Saturday. And yet, here they were again, this time at his place, hunting her clothes under swank couches and between the bed and wall, and she couldn't venture a guess about what he was getting out of it.

Clearly, she wasn't Vegeta's type. It was evident what kind of women he'd been with in the past, and she was just barely the same species as them. As she pulled up her holey white briefs and shined her phone light around the berber carpet, looking for her work shirt, she poured over the reasons he'd keep pursuing her.

1.

The sex was good. It was really good. It was stupidly, earth shatteringly, deliciously amazing. Was sex always this good? She didn't remember it being so hot. Like the sex was in the movies and in rap videos. Maybe she was just easy to please, but why would he keep putting himself in her way if he wasn't getting anything out of it, too? That was weird to think about.

2.

She had no previous experience to call on when it came to this hooking up, booty call stuff.

What was casual sex supposed to be like? How did you look each other in the eye afterward? How did you not feel kind of strange about someone having a first hand experience with how much hair covered your privates but not knowing your last name? She knew she wasn't supposed to get emotionally involved, so this didn't really require any scrutiny, right? So maybe he was just taking advantage of her naivety? Maybe he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes, you know, about...how much of a sexy man he was. Maybe he was trying to get the milk without buying the cow, or something. Wait, that didn't add up.

It's not like she could have said no, had he handed her a contract that first time from between her legs and said, "So you're obviously not my type, and I would never take you home to my mother, but I'd like to bump uglies. Sign here, here, aaaand here. And initial there." And she would have!

He was hot, what could she say? She was going to have to start DVRing the Simpsons each night if he kept intruding into her evenings. He was stupid hot, and he was kind of funny. Was he? Bulma wasn't sure 'funny' was the way to describe it. But he was definitely...interesting. And when was the last time she'd gotten laid anyway? She had to put her binoculars on to see that far into her past.

She understood he was rough around the edges, was high maintenance (excluding his relationship with her, anyway), and could be very critical and competitive, which was respectable but mostly just irritating. She kind of liked that about him though. He didn't mince words, he was unfailingly proud of his thoughts and interests, and he was apt to be very selective in them. She was confident that whatever he liked or thought, there'd be a good reason for it, and even if she didn't agree with it, she found herself growing to like those things through his confidence in them. He was logical, and she was illogical, and somewhere, they kinda met in the middle.

Not that they'd done much talking. It was weird to think that she'd spent more time underneath him than discussing these kinds of things with him. But it didn't feel unnatural. Was there a Facebook relationship status that described them?

So, anyway, she kind of liked the things that defined him, and she felt that he got that about her, and kind of...respected her for it.

Leading to

3.

He was using her.

...Probably as stress relief. But...wasn't that what casual sex was all about? A moments vacation from the rigamarole of life? Should she really fear being viewed objectively if she were consenting to this casual sex stuff?

She shrugged on her jacket over her 'B's Dub's' baseball T and checked to make sure her keys and cards hadn't tumbled out of her pockets in the ruckus tonight. She'd be happy when the weather got warmer. It had been an exceedingly cold, long winter, and the nights were just beginning to lose their hold on the day. West City hadn't seen any flurries for weeks. In a month or two, she'd be able to ride her old Honda cafe racer to work. The Bus didn't have a heater box. Brrr.

The glass door slid open. She looked over her shoulder as she pulled her wooly, fingerless gloves over her hands and wiggled her hat on over her hair, adjusting the ear flaps.

Vegeta's silhouette was a shadow against the sliding glass door, the light smell of tobacco wafting in after him.

He didn't say anything, and to Bulma's surprise, it wasn't really awkward. In fact, she smiled a little as she tugged her jacket cuffs over her mittens, watching him watching her.

"Later," she said, giving him a small wave.

He approached her, and his face was impassive as he said, "Let me see you out."

"Whatever, tough guy," she remarked, following him through the modern condo, passing a wall of glass panes in the dark living room which opened to an expansive lawn.

He opened the door into the softly lit outside corridor of the complex and jerked her back by her ear flappies right as she stepped over the threshold, giving her a surprisingly delicate kiss.

"Be safe," he graveled, and she nodded, unable to deny a smile as she flicked a stray tuft of hair from his forehead that had been mashed and weighed down with sweat as he rocked underneath her, his head pressed into the pillows and headboard as she had surged against him, her chest mashed into his.

"You know the Bus doesn't get much faster than 40 miles per hour," she smiled, before winking and turning to make her way down the stairs to the small, landscaped parking lot, unaware that Vegeta watched her the whole way with a small, contented smirk.


	5. Chapter 5

Bulma had tried her damnedest to make it to Goku's game on time, really she had. But it was a Friday night, and it seemed she was so very vulnerable to Murphy's Law.

One guy came in at 4:30, plumes of smoke billowing from under his hood, yelling about forgetting to change the oil…for the last few years. And then Frank, her least favorite tow truck guy, came in honking at a quarter to five with an old Rabbit that had definitely seen better days. She'd barely had time to wash her hands before she'd slid into the cracked leather seats of her VW Bus, ripped open a box of Cheez-Its and urged her beloved toaster of an automobile to 55mph in an effort to make it to Goku's game at least fashionably late.

She carefully parked the box on wheels at the farthest reaches of the parking lot of the sprawling community center, jerking the wheel with all her strength as the old power steering fought her.

Putting the bus into neutral and cranking the emergency brake, Bulma spared a glance in the cracked, grimy sun visor mirror to make sure she looked alright.

Her hair was out of her face, thanks to a ratty red handkerchief, at least. The thin white tank she wore under her sherpa-lined leather jacket and her stained, torn work jeans were just gonna have to do. At least Chi Chi wasn't trying to set her up again, so she had no one to look put together for. She could just relax in the bleachers with some snack food and a beer and watch good looking men throw a ball around.

To her delight, after jogging through the parking lot and up the stairs into the huge building, she spotted a food stand, and she went ahead and ordered a cheese dog and a beer before making her way with hurried strides to the baseball section of the public sports complex, chowing down as she went.

Crossing into the huge auditorium that held the pristine baseball field, its astroturf a vivid green against the crisp white baseball triangle and baseball players milling around doing…baseball things, Bulma worried her lip, wondering how in the heck she was going to find Chi Chi in the crowd.

To her relief and surprise, she spotted Launch and Juuhachigou. She felt a surge of nostalgia. She and Chi Chi had affectionately nicknamed Juu 'Eighteen' after an overly attached friend-with-benefits had lost his temper with her in front of them one night, accusing Juu of being an "unfeeling robot." Bulma had burst into hacking laughter, spraying the man in the face with beer as she giggled uncontrollably, causing Chi Chi and Eighteen to scream with laughter as the jilted man slunk out of the bar, his shoulders stiff around his ears.

That was back when she and the girls shared a townhouse, when every Friday night was girl's night, and she was the only one who had a significant other. Now it seemed all her girlfriends had meaningful relationships except Bulma, causing Bulma to feel a little left behind.

The pair stood loitering in the aisle a few dozen feet ahead, showing every sign of being apathetic to the game behind them, their chic, brightly colored outfits clashing with their boredom as she made her way down to them.

The women spotted her. "Long time no see," Launch's rough voice called out, and the two women shared a hug, Eighteen bending to kiss Bulma's cheek cooly. "Here for Chi Chi and Goku?"

"Yep," Bulma agreed, chomping down on the last chunk of her cheese dog. "Do you know where she is?” She asked with her mouth full.

Without uncrossing her arms, Juu pointed a slender finger toward the dugout, and Bulma peered past her to see Chi Chi in the front row, sitting with her legs crossed in her tailored pants and heels, her heel tapping, looking very much out of place.

Bulma smirked at the women. "She certainly looks excited to be here!"

They all shared an understanding chuckle.

She threw her empty hot dog wrapper in the nearby trashcan and looked at the two women in front of her curiously. "Sorry gals, I've barely ate all day. So what are you ladies doing here? I haven't seen you in over a year, Launch! Not since last year's Christmas party."

Eighteen broke out into a snicker.

"In fact," Bulma continued, smiling deviously, "it was when you were being dragged out by Tien after decking Roshi for trying to take an upskirt photo. How is Tien? How's the bounty hunting business?"

Tossing her thick, wavy blonde hair over her shoulder, Launch crossed her arms over her chest. Oblivious as usual to their teasing about her relationship and her career path, Launch shrugged. "We're good." Then she grinned evilly and elbowed Eighteen in the ribs, which earned her an icy glare. "We're here because we're watching Eighteen's boyfriend play."

"Boyfriend?" Bulma squealed. She turned to Eighteen in shock. "Since when did you date?"

To her amazement, Eighteen blushed lightly, her cornflower blue eyes sliding to the ground self consciously, her pale blonde hair swinging to obscure her delicate face as she turned away to hide her embarrassment.

And then turned back to the women stiffly. "Yeah, well, don't be so smug about it. Yamcha's here, too." She jut her thumb over her shoulder.

"What?!" Bulma yelped. "Oh, oh noooo." Bulma looked at them pleadingly. "That's not possible. It's been..."

"Almost three years?" Launch offered, smirking. "Go down and say hi, B, he was asking about you."

"Oh god." Bulma felt her grip tighten on her beer and she stared at them with wide eyes. "That's just...that's just dandy."

Abruptly swigging the rest of her beer and tossing the empty bottle in the trash with a delicate burp, she muttered, "I'm going to need more of these."

Launch laughed throatily. "Is he really that bad, Bulma? You guys seemed so happy together. Tien still talks to him every now and then."

"Krillin is good friends with him," Eighteen added indifferently.

The scruffy, blue-haired woman glared at them. "Go nose for gossip somewhere else, gals." She blew the wayward strands of hair out of her face, casting her eyes to the sky, and sighed. "Well, I'll be hiding under the bleachers behind the dugout if you need me."

"I have no doubt I could find you," Launch promised, and Bulma snorted at her old friend's obnoxious confidence as she stepped down the stairs, waving over her shoulder, her boots hitting the cement with solid thunks.

It'd been a few years since she and Launch had really talked, but it was clear she hadn't changed a bit. Bulma felt a little relieved by the fact. Launch had dropped out of grad school early on to join a small bounty hunting business, which suited her much, much more than academia did. Bulma and Chi Chi suspected she'd only signed up for school in her dogged pursuit of some guy from East City that everyone laughingly agreed wasn't even into her gender. Launch had always been impulsive, but without the common sense that Bulma had not to chase after a man who clearly swung the other way.

Well, not that sleeping with a man that was cold, abrasive, cocksure, and for the most part entirely uninterested in being friendly was limited to Launch, Bulma reminded herself. But, well, as much as Bulma wanted to psychoanalyze, dissect, and take apart her and Vegeta's...relationship...she just couldn't make heads or tails of it. She wasn't even sure where to start. His body just kind of, well, sang a song that only she could hear.

That was probably where she and Launch differed. Launch lacked even the curiosity to be self-reflective. She just went charging straight ahead toward what she wanted, which was fine. Different strokes for different folks.

Bulma, on the other hand, had spent years lacking self-esteem and letting self-doubt encroach on every facet of her young adult life. She had used it conveniently to stay in a field she didn't care for one bit, and to shield herself from the growing, heavy dissatisfaction with her relationship with Yamcha. Bulma had decided to turn a new leaf after their breakup and focus on her own needs.

She had developed a routine to keep from having to be pensive anymore: work, work, sleep, work, and microwavable and/or pre-packaged food that didn't require much pomp and circumstance. Aaaand…work. No more making sure dinner was on the table for a man promptly at five.

There was a difference between she and Launch, Bulma assured herself.

Which is why, when she sat down next to Chi Chi, startling the woman and who returned the favor by lightly punching Bulma's shoulder, Bulma gave her a big squeeze. Despite the way time seemed to pull everyone in different directions, despite their hangups, she could still count on Chi Chi to be there for her.

Chi Chi's dark eyes widened. "Where have you been?" Chi Chi glanced at her watch. "You're forty seven minutes late!"

"I know," Bulma admitted, sighing. "I'm sorry. Things got busy at work last minute. You know how it goes."

Chi Chi snorted delicately. "Uh huh. Well, you've totally missed this most riveting first few innings." She gestured lamely at the game.

"Uh huh." She unzipped her jacket and tossed it on the empty chair beside her. "So I ran into Launch and Eighteen on my way down here-"

Chi Chi turned to her excitedly. "YES! Okay, do you see that player in the red jersey near the middle base, whatever it is?”

"Second?"

"Yes. Number seven? Do you see him?" Chi Chi could barely contain her glee.

She pointed towards the field, where a short, well-built man with a shaved head hovered, watching the pitcher wind up with firm concentration.

"Uh, Cheech….That's Krillin." Bulma stared at her friend as if she were dense.

"Krillin is Eighteen's new beau."

"What?" Bulma crowed, looking at Chi Chi incredulously. "But, he's so nice. She grinds nice guys under her heels!"

"I know! But apparently, for some reason or other, she likes this one! And he's, like, a whole foot shorter than her," Chi Chi whispered to her conspiratorially, before leaning back and smoothing her pant legs. "They're actually really adorable together," she amended. "They have this funny chemistry." She smiled out at the field before them. "And Launch, ohmygoodness...She told me earlier that Tien's 'friend,' Chiaotzu or whatever, is living with them."

Bulma gasped. "Like, a love triangle? Is it polyamory when your lovers despise each other?"

The women shared a few giggles.

"They told me Yamcha is here somewhere," Bulma griped, folding her arms and slouching against the metal seat.

Chi Chi looked out of the corner of her eye at her friend. "Oh yeah? That's weird."

"Hopefully we won't cross paths."

"Why not? He's a nice guy. It might be good for you guys to reconnect," Chi Chi suggested neutrally.

Bulma guffawed loudly. "Yeah, right."

Chi Chi frowned, before a devious smiled played on her lips. "I've never known Bulma Briefs to be afraid of saying hello to someone," she teased.

"I'm not," she protested, taking the bait and earning a little sly smile from Chi Chi in the process.

"I think you should at least say hi. Otherwise he's going to think you're afraid of him." Chi Chi poked Bulma in the ribs and then watched her friend's expression go from frustrated refusal to reproachful but begrudging acceptance.

Bulma sat up. "Look, I'm going to go get another beer. Do you want one?"

"Gross. No thanks," she sniffed.

"Your loss, princess," Bulma called on her way up the stairs, and Chi Chi finally noticed that she was still in her dirty work clothes and repressed a growl. How was she going to woo Yamcha back dressed like that? She needed to have another talk with Bunny.

Chi Chi let out a small huff and turned back to the game, trying not to sulk.

* * *

Vegeta stared at the baseball game, oozing boredom, slouching in his seat with his arms crossed. Pouting like a teenager, his menacing scowl was still a fair warning to anyone who came within twenty feet of him.

Some loser threw a ball at another loser and he rolled his eyes. He didn't know why he'd accepted Goku's overture to come watch this 'game,' nor Nappa's ludicrous idea to cap the night off at the swanky 'gentleman's club' he'd so far been successful avoiding all these years. It all sounded pretty beneath him, but he'd needed something, anything, to distract him. There was a particular blue haired woman that was pulling his thoughts every which way, at work, at the gym, at the loneliest hours of the night.

He'd so far been successful having little to no interest in keeping a woman around for more than a night. But now his conviction that women were only good for one thing was trembling and fraying at the seams. He didn't like change, he didn't want change. He liked being in control; and at work, at the gym, in his refusal to go through the motions of a relationship with some woman, he was in control of his life.

Why go through all the empty gestures and trivialities of dating? For what? What was the payout? Being tamed? Unfulfilled? Controlled? Bored? Vegeta liked life just the way it was, a life where he was at the top. Not some woman.

And yet, she pulled at the edges of his every thought, hemmed the corners of every decision he made, hummed through the signatures he put to paper and thrummed though his body as he was soaping up in the shower. Sex was not worth becoming enslaved for—oh yes, enslaved and indebted for—and he reminded his body of this as he tried to ignore the rigid erection heavy between his legs, and as he scrubbed at his hair with frustration.

But she was not any other woman.

So he'd accepted the idiots' invitation to go out, because it would prevent him from driving over to her shop, tossing her over the car she was working on, and sinking himself into her, prevent him from watching her mouth part and her vividly blue eyes gaze up at him with half-lidded approval and thrwart his own grating pleasure from it. Coming here to stare unseeing at the game would prevent him from spending four nights with her this week, which was intolerable! and outrageous!, given he'd met her such a short time ago. It was not something he wanted to admit to anyone, especially himself. Especially because he'd had an ulterior motive to get her to talk on the case which was becoming obscured by feelings.

He heard the guys share a bawdy joke, their guffaws erupting around him, distantly heard them take shots at one another with barely registered contempt for them. What was she doing right now? Was she curled up underneath the chassis of a car, her small hands working a wrench, biting the corner of her lower lip as a million thoughts swirled in that head of hers? He could see her generous lips parting as she turned towards him, skin bright with a sheen of sweat from the heat of her desire for him, her hips peaking from her low rise jeans invitingly...

"Vegeta," she'd moan.

"Vegeta," Raditz called flatly. "Earth to Vegeta. Where are you tonight?"

Vegeta growled and looked the other way.

"Aw, c'mon Vegeta, we're going to Brassieres soon. Cheer up," Nappa cajoled, his big voice projecting around them, flustering Vegeta.

"Lower your voice. You look like an idiot and you're making me look like one, too," Vegeta snarled.

Raditz smirked. "We're going to grab a beer. Come on, old man. Just chill for once."

Vegeta fixed them both with a scathing look before hopping off the bleachers and heading up the stairs. "Fine."

The men made their way up the stairs and to the bar across from the entrance of the field, and as the two idiots chattered on about loose women, Vegeta stuck his hands in his pants pockets and considered escaping.

Maybe she'd be at the shop? It was likely she was spending another long evening there.

And he ran his fingers over his face and sighed.

"Bulma," he heard Raditz call, like he had plucked the thought of her right out of his head, and Vegeta's head whipped around.

And there she was, her back turned to him, at the head of the line, collecting two beers in each hand after handing the cashier a ten. Her dirty shirt rode up around her jeans, the creamy skin of her hips peering out beneath it, and she turned to the men with a sharp glance that had his gut churning. She raised a pretty little eyebrow at the men in front of him, and he realized she didn't know he was there. He could see a smear of grease on her earlobe that he had the strangest urge to lick.

"Raditz," she greeted snidely, and the sound of her voice made his breath catch. She was full of piss and vinegar, spleen and bile. It should infuriate him, and instead it just piqued a curiosity and lust for life in him long thought dead. She was just a mechanic, he grumbled. What did she have to be so proud about?

"Why on Kami's green earth are you here? Don't you have a Playgirl calendar photo shoot to attend?"

"Is all that booze for you?" Nappa asked her playfully, and Raditz smirked snootily.

"Someone's got a problem."

She rolled her eyes, and he watched from behind Nappa, his fists clenched in his pockets, trying to appear disinterested but trying not to be noticed as he listened in.

"Oh, please, Nappa. You go through ten times this amount of booze before breakfast. I just don't want to have to get up for another beer once I sit down."

"He takes that much cock before breakfast," Raditz joked dreadfully, and Nappa elbowed him in the ribs.

"Oh, is that what you've been using in your hair, Raditz?" Bulma asked innocently. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I have much more important things to do, like drink myself into a stupor and hope it makes seeing my ex more bearable. Which sounds infinitely more enjoyable than sticking around for your cum jokes, boys. Cheers," she smiled, before beginning to walk away.

Bulma nearly stumbled as she made eye contact with Vegeta. Her smile vanished, replaced by, of all things...a blush.

It was as if time slowed, and predatory, wanton instincts emerged to the surface of the man. He smiled, a slow, sincere, dastardly smile that increased in size with the color in her cheeks.

She made her way quickly down the stairs.

"What a bitch."

"Tell me about it."

"I'd hit it though." Nappa popped a nacho chip into his mouth.

Vegeta turned to the men waiting on their drinks with a new, roiling emotion.

"I'd say she's still mad at you Vegeta," Raditz chuckled. "She didn't even say hello."

Vegeta settled for a compromise between his anger and his desire to repress it; he grabbed the frosty mugs from the counter as soon as the cashier set them down and kicked both Raditz and Nappa in the back of the knees, sending each careening to the ground in varying degrees of grace and curses.

"Neither of you get to hit that," he dictated, before walking smoothly after her.

* * *

Bulma plopped down beside Chi Chi with a sigh. "Cheech, I need to ask you something."

"What," Chi Chi replied boredly as she watched the baseball game with infinite disinterest.

"This is real talk. And you can't judge me. Don't judge me!" Bulma's voice rose as she set her beers beside her.

Chi Chi raised an eyebrow at their number and then looked up at Bulma. "Okay. Shoot." She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap.

Bulma buried her head in her hands. "Okay. I really don't know who else to talk about this with, so here goes…." Bulma peeked between her fingers at her friend, whose perfectly straight, silky hair lay around her clear, narrow face, her coral blouse matching her lip stain perfectly as Bulma gazed at her friend's modest, prettily lined eyes. Ugh, why was Chi Chi so perfect?

"Cheech...I need to know..." She lowered her wavering voice, and glanced around. "What is a one night stand supposed to be like?"

"What?" Chi Chi exclaimed.

Bulma shoved her fingers to her friend's lips and glanced around nervously. "Shut. Up!"

"Okay, okay," Chi Chi whined, swatting her hand away. "But why are you asking me this? Didn't you just have one?"

Bulma looked away with embarrassment. "I guess so."

"So...what exactly are you asking me?"

"I just…." Bulma threw her hands up and then laid them in her lap forlornly. "I'm just...worried I'm not doing it right."

"What do you mean? Wait, like present tense, 'doing?' Bulma, has there been more than one time?"

Bulma hid her mortification behind her beer bottle.

"You slut!" Chi Chi playfully punched her in the shoulder. "Like, with a different guy, or the same one?"

"The same one," came Bulma's muffled, weak reply behind the sweating bottle.

"Why are you so hung up about this?" Chi Chi asked suspiciously. "It's not like you to be worried about what other people think."

"It's just, I'm new to this, alright?!" Bulma shoved the beer into her lap with frustration. "I don't know how I'm supposed to act around him, or feel about it…."

"Has Yamcha really been the only one you’ve—you know," Chi Chi whispered.

"Yes." Bulma's tone was defensive.

"So this guy's your second?"

"Yes."

"Holy shit, Bulma Briefs, it's like he took your second virginity! Did you bleed? Did he rebreak your hymen?"

"Shut up!" Bulma stomped on Chi Chi's foot.

"You're going to scuff my heels!" Chi Chi whined, but giggled. "Sometimes you're so precious, Bulma."

"I knew I shouldn't have talked to you about this," Bulma complained, rising and grabbing for her jacket.

"Bulma, don't go," Chi Chi cried, pulling her back down. "I'm sorry."

Bulma grumbled under her breath and sat back down even as she threaded her arms through her jacket.

"Look, having a casual relationship...it has its advantages. When dating, you spend all this time pretending to be someone else," Chi Chi remarked wryly. "With hookups, you get straight to the good part." She shrugged and looked at Bulma with barely contained mirth. "You're such a day dreamer. Don't make more to this than there is. Just enjoy it."

Bulma looked at her friend disbelievingly and then picked her longnecks up from the ground.

"This night has been a clusterfuck and it just started. I'm going home and watching all one million seasons of the Flintstones." Bulma rose. "Thanks for the talk," she remarked caustically. "Now I know how you really feel about me."

Chi Chi looked at her go worriedly. "See you later tonight, I guess."

Bulma heard Chi Chi say something under her breath as she marched her way up the stairs, bristling, and chose to ignore it. What a waste of time. What did she mean don't make more to this than there is? This was the woman who made it her life's work trying to find her a suitable husband. Like Bulma was a naive teenager or something.

And then it happened.

"Hey, B."

Bulma's head snapped up.

Yamcha stood in front of her at the top of the stairs, leaning against the rail, smiling quietly.

Bulma's heart dropped.

The collar of his pale yellow jersey lay open against his thick, tan neck, the thin line of a long, forgotten scar that jut across one eye almost charming. He was taller and broader than she remembered, his biceps bulging as he uncrossed his arms to adjust his baseball cap, smiling handsomely.

"Hey," she struggled to say.

"Hey! It's been awhile." He regarded her intently, his cheerful, light brown eyes dispelling any awkwardness between them.

"Yep."

"How have you been? I heard you've opened up a car repair shop. I wouldn't have guessed you'd quit law to work on cars, but I guess you were always complaining about how bored you were with it." I guess you never knew me very well, she thought darkly.

But he regarded her warmly. "Look at you." Yamcha gestured at her, and Bulma looked down at herself. "You look well. You look great. You look really great."

"How's Puar?" She asked, tongue thick, mouth dried up.

"Puar's fine. She's great, actually. Just got her a new cat jungle gym, you know, the carpeted tunnels. They go all over my living room. It's pretty cool, actually."

Bulma smiled weakly. She felt weirdly out of body. She should not be smiling! Back straight, Bulma Briefs! Guns ready! Hello? Bulma? "Those are the best. Wish they made them for people."

"That would be wild. Something to cross off my bucket list."

They shared an odd laugh.

"Well, I'm just getting out of here...maybe I'll see you around," she finished lamely.

"Yeah. Maybe I'll drop by the shop sometime?"

Bulma swallowed this weird emotion swirling up her gut.

"Sure."

Yamcha moved to the side, allowing her to pass.

"It was good seeing you, B."

Bulma walked forward stiffly, feeling like she was walking past a ghost. The ghost of a man she had once been terribly in love with, a ghost trying to convince her that he was alive again, past the gravestone of her innocent adoration.

"See you around, Yamcha."

She took a deep breath, and then let it escape through her lips.

It wasn't ten feet before she ran right into Vegeta, who stood with his hands in his pants pockets, glowering down at her.

"I swear to Kami," she began, before Vegeta plucked a beer out of her grip, "what is going on tonight?"

And then to her befuddlement, right in front of the entrance to the baseball field, Vegeta yanked her to his chest and set his hungry lips against hers.

She stared up at him with surprise.

He pulled away as quickly as it began, but not without leading her forward at the small of her back and flicking off the beer bottle cap. "Come on, short stack." His hand drifted down her back before he walked off, apparently expecting her to follow.

Bulma just stood there, staring with amazement. They'd never been...publicly affectionate before. "What the hell is going on tonight?"

He turned to smirk over his shoulder at her, leaving her with a few goofy butterflies. "You better get your ass in gear or I'm leaving without you."

She hustled up to his side, making a face.

Vegeta opened the entrance door for her, and Bulma missed his paranoid glancing back and forth over her head.

"What the hell is going on between us?" She asked him, nearly hysterical with bewilderment.

He strode towards the parking lot with self-assured steps, leaving her behind.

"I'm so confused!" She wailed.

Vegeta whipped around, clearly agitated. "Are you coming?"

"Yes," she griped, and picked up her feet.

"You sure you don't want to hang out with your ex-boyfriend?" He sneered.

Her eyes widened. He'd seen them talking. How did he know? Wait.

"Are you jealous?" She smiled smugly.

"Hmph. Have you seen what he drives?"

Bulma burst out laughing and squeezed his bicep. "Indeed I have. Where are we going?"

"Your place."

"My place? Why specifically my place?" She matched his stride, and they made their way toward her bus, brushing shoulders.

"Because," he replied silkily, giving her a smoky once over. "There's a theory I want to test. Something I've wanted to do since you invited me in the first time."

“Oh, really?" Her eyebrow rose. "And just what is that?"

"Make you cook for me."

Her eyes widened.

"Oh, no. I told you. I don't cook."

His toothy grin grew wider as they neared her bus.

"I think you can. And I'm going to watch you do it. While I undress you."

Bulma had a hard time swallowing.

"Slowly."

His mouth got closer to her ear as he pulled her to his side, running his fingers through her hair and tangling it.

"But I really just want to go home and watch the Flintstones," she protested.

"That's too bad, because I'm what's happening tonight."

In the thick dusk of the cool spring night, he held her against his side as he opened her door for her.

"Get in the bus and take us to your place."

"I'm not kicking Scratch out of bed for you," she breathed weakly as his fingers toyed with the top of her jeans, sliding the button out of its hole smoothly and hooking his thumbs in the waist of her underwear.

"What? The cat?" Vegeta asked quizzically, before a smile spread across his face. "Then I'm not apologizing for insisting there only be one man in your bed at a time.”

* * *

Bulma lay with her head buried in Vegeta's chest, dozing. Barney Rubble yammered on in the quiet of the night as her foot tingled, numb from Scratch's weight.

Once they'd arrive, he'd made her do exactly as he said he would.

At first he'd only slouched in the chair, watching her at the stove and sipping on a dry martini. It was only after she'd had a tantrum of frustration at her predicament, and received only a string of chuckles at her expense, that she'd sobered as he stood and made his way toward her, his dark gaze never leaving hers. He'd peeled off her jacket as his teeth pulled gently at her bottom lip. He'd unbuckled her belt and followed her pants descent with his mouth. She had stood in the middle of the kitchen in just her underwear and bitched weakly about the state of the sushi she was trying unsuccessfully to roll for him, and he'd responded by sucking at her clit with abandon while she leaned back brainlessly against the stove, her bare leg lazing on his shoulder.

After her knees had buckled, he finished working her into a froth in her bedroom, grinding against her with infuriating slow strokes, grinning daringly as he gripped her thighs. He'd pulled out of her slowly, earning a disappointed whine, leaned in close to put his searing mouth against her supple thighs. He nipped and licked his way up her ribs, causing her to twitch and laugh, which only incited him to brace his hands in her sheets and bury his head in her neck and thrust with exacting, demanding urgency.

Bulma had been too exhausted to question it when, instead of leaving, Vegeta had laid down beside her and pressed himself against her back, her eyelids already fluttering heavily. But, perhaps sensing something wasn't right, Bulma had woken up awhile later, Scratch trying to reclaim the bed and her Flintstones DVD on repeat, and Vegeta was still right there, breathing deeply, his head on her red flannel Scooby Doo pillow, his intimidating features softened by sleep.

And she wondered again, this time with as much giddy pleasure as anxiety, just what was going on between them.

Slowly she reached out to finger his hair, catching her breath as she ran her fingertips over the top of his coarse tresses. She watched his chest rise and fall, his corded throat expand and relax with his deep, consistent breaths, and she ran her thumb down his shoulder, round and firm, a boxer's shoulder.

His lips parted with the force of his discomposure, and she bent down and kissed his open mouth, tasting his lower lip lightly before drawing back to gaze at him. He lay as quiet as ever. Giggling softly, she leaned forward on her elbows and placed her palms against his cheeks, and with a growing smile, smushed his cheeks together, forcing his mouth to pout and his eyebrows to furrow. She giggled uncontrollably now, kissed the tip of his nose in apology, and lay her head against his chest, his heartbeat beneath her head. Mesmerized, she pressed her ear closer to his skin and wiggled to get comfortable.

Listening to his heart thump in his chest, one persistent, strong beat after the other, gradually led her to yawn, and then to drift to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

It was only when Chi Chi was banging on the bedroom door and hollering at Bulma to wake up that Vegeta bolted upright, straight from the kind of restful, deep sleep he was not accustomed to getting. Bulma, seemingly clinically dead, emitted only a thin sigh in response.

"Get up!" Vegeta hissed, momentarily frozen. "Your insane roommate is going to walk in on us."

She inched the blankets down her face and tried to peer up at him through glazed, half-open eyes.

"How do you even sleep like that without suffocating?" He added.

"What's your problem?" She croaked. "The door is locked. She'll leave me alone in a minute."

Alarm was coursing through him, and he kicked off the blankets and yanked on his pants in one swift movement. "Distract her so I can get out of here."

Bulma rose, fumbling, the blanket falling around her chest, her mane of hair perched to consume her face. "Why are you so worried about it?"

Vegeta clenched his teeth and tried not to call the woman a handful of insulting but apt descriptions. "Get some clothes on and distract her!" He wheezed, pulling his shirt over too-delicious muscles, the taut things plucked like strings as he jerked his shirt over his head.

Bulma rubbed her crusty eyes of the tempting afterimage before glaring at him. "In other words, you don't want her to know about us."

"Oh, so you're reiterating what I said just now?"

Bulma's sleepy mien grew suddenly stormy. She bent forward and snatched her underwear from the floor, tugging it on jerkily under the blankets and glaring at Vegeta, who buttoned up his coat without faltering and stared out her window heedlessly. Rage was building up in her chest, and she yanked a well-worn band shirt over her curls and stomped toward the door. For a second, Vegeta's stony face fell, his mouth parting in protest when he realized she was about to walk out the door in her panties, but Bulma threw open the bedroom door carelessly and stalked out of the room before he could stop her.

His indignation bolstered him and he followed after her, entering the living room just in time to see the woman's roommate and his co-worker whip around at the sound of their footsteps in the soft morning light streaming in from the skylights.

He steeled himself as his black eyes met Goku's, trying to mask his thumping heart and the sinking in the pit of his stomach. Goku stared at him with quiet surprise, eyebrows knit with puzzlement. His girlfriend's reaction was more animated, and if he'd felt more calm, he would have laughed at it. Her mouth gaping and her eyes wide as dinner plates, she gawked at the two of them, her eyes clearly understanding but her brain visibly wheeling. For once, she’d opened her mouth and didn't know what to say.

Bulma headed forward undeterred, her matted curls jutting out in several directions and her thin panties not completely concealing her backside, making him squirm, before he realized with some horror that they had little unicorns printed all over them.

She opened the front door calmly, her back to them all as she leaned on the door casually and waited for his exit. Every step was a tangle of conflicting humiliation and rage as he felt their eyes on his back, and although he wanted nothing more at that second than to walk out the front door and never look back, he hesitated. He wasn't really sure what he wanted in that moment; he needed a lot more time and patience than he had to sort through and decipher it all. And yet, he stalled as he reached the threshold, his body facing forward, wanting out, but his head tilting towards hers, wanting...wanting to accuse her of just being so ridiculous, to spew his grievances, to make it clear just how he would not tolerate not having things his way, in the future...But he didn't have the chance.

To his utter shock, Bulma slapped him right across the ass.

"Good game, player," she said to him loudly, and his gaze jerked to hers in total, utter, incandescent disbelief. "I'll see that ugly mug of yours soon."

Her gaze met his from under stormy, sea-green eyebrows with an equal amount of near-explosive fury.

And as his mouth pulled down and he sucked in air through his nose, puffing up to put her right back in her place, she stepped back...

And slammed the door on his face.

Bulma turned, yawning wide and stretching, revealing her pale belly. She regarded Goku and Chi Chi sleepily, before sinking back into a slouch and rubbing the back of her head as she shuffled back to her room. Goku and Chi Chi watched her mutely, Chi Chi's mouth moving soundlessly.

Just as Chi Chi forced her foot to move in front of the other with the slow force of a locomotive, Bulma was meandering back out of her room, tugging up her loose jeans and shrugging on her bulky work jacket. She shoved her feet into her flip flops and tied her hair back carelessly, yawning again, loudly. "I'm gonna run and grab some coffee," she told them. "Be right back."

And shut the front door firmly behind her.

* * *

As Bulma strode down the sidewalk, navigating around the Saturday morning coffee shop goers and window shoppers, she congratulated herself on successfully avoiding Chi Chi's questions at a time she was in no position to answer them. Her toes were growing numb from the lingering late spring chill, and she jiggled her keys in her pocket to an angry rhythm.

However, she had not found a way yet to calm down without making a scene, which was why she was walking around in circles. She had successfully stomped around the little urban square a few blocks from her apartment, sipping her coffee crossly until she realized it was gone and then chucking it into a trash can with an insulted huff. Bulma knew she was literally getting nowhere, so she palmed her keys and was now marching back towards her place, where she was going to hop into her bus, get the hell outta there, and do the only thing she could count on: bang on some shit.

And, so it was with great relief that Bulma pulled up to her quiet shop, gravel crunching under her tires loudly and parking lot empty.

She didn't waste any time unlocking the door and kicking off her sandals. She peeled her shirt off and knotted the handkerchief around her head with a no-nonsense familiarity. She stepped into her overalls and the zipper emitted a tinny protest all the way up to her neck. She shoved her feet into a pair of thick socks and work boots, lacing them up with exacting jerks.

And then Bulma stood in front of the old Bug, wrench in hand, surveying the rusty and battered thing with deep, even breaths.

Eyebrows and mouth relaxing as she planned her attack, Bulma began stomping on the jack before snaking under the car and beginning the tedious process of taking the whole thing apart.

B's Dubs was closed one Saturday a week. She got one weekend a month to visit her family, and that policy was firm. Today was that Saturday, and she had every intention of finishing it out there at the shop before dropping in on her parents for a late (and convenient) dinner.

So when the bell rang distantly, indicating someone had entered her shop despite the sign clearly saying CLOSED, she'd half expected it to be another douche demanding that she take a look at his car. Or even her mother with a tray full of cookies, trying to lure her out from underneath an import again.

So she didn't waste any time turning around after throwing the Beetle's front seats into the corner with a clang, and was met with a wall of surprise when she saw the last person she expected: Yamcha.

"Hello," she said uncertainly.

"Hey," he greeted her, taking her in with a growing smile. "You look busy. I hope I'm not bothering you. Wow, look at this place." He looked all around slowly, noting the old movie posters, the cobwebs, the diesel exhaust-coated fluorescents. "Wow, a juke box? Very cool." He wore a snappy leather jacket and khakis, and he smiled so warmly and sincerely that it melted a little of her shock and irritation from being interrupted by him.

"Yep." She stepped slowly towards him, where he hovered over her restored juke box in the corner. She managed a polite half-smile. "It's my baby."

He flipped through her catalog, and as she approached, leaning over him to see his selection, she got a hint of his nauseatingly familiar smell, alongside a sophisticated aftershave she didn't recognize and the cozy smell of leather.

"I don't recognize anything. Aw, nothing good in here." He sent her a smile as her face fell into a frown.

"What brings you here?" She asked cooly, wrapping her arms around her chest.

"Ah. Well." He turned back to her, running his fingers through his suavely styled hair. "Since we saw each other at the game last night, I just couldn't stop thinking about you..." He blushed scarlet and rolled his eyes. "I mean, just, what a coincidence..."

Bulma couldn't help her slanted mouth and her rising eyebrow.

"I mean, I know it's been a long time, so I thought you might wanna catch up….Pizza? I know you like pizza. Antonio's?" He stuttered.

It was cute, she thought distantly. Should be, anyway, but wasn't, her heart responding with as much emotion as she would survey a map or plunge a toilet.

"Antonio's, huh," she tried courteously. "My favorite pizza place."

"Yeah," he chuckled.

She sighed. "You know," she began, before gripping his shoulder with friendly rapport. "I love pizza. Why don't you give me a second to clean up," she gestured to the pile of car in the corner, "and then follow me to my folks? I'm sure they'd love to see you again. I'll get changed there and we can head over."

Yamcha beamed at her under thick lashes with boyish glee. "Really? Alright! Awesome. Let's catch up." The chirp of a cell phone began building from his pocket, and he smiled apologetically. "I'll just take this outside while you pick up the mess." He was already turning and heading out the door as she scowled slightly after him.

"My mess, huh." She moseyed forward to watch him strut to his car, kicking her gravel with the toe of his shoe as his mouth moved quietly next to his phone.

She frowned further with distaste, and narrowed her eyes before snorting. "What are you driving, Yamcha." She stared out at him silently, before rolling her eyes and heading toward the stripped down skeleton of the Beetle, waiting wordlessly for her to come back to it.


	7. Chapter 7

"Well, lookee here," Bulma cooed as she rubbed her hands gleefully over the slice of pepperoni and artichoke pizza with extra onions bigger than the size of her face. "Come to mama." She veritably cackled as she picked it up with both hands and funneled it into her face.

Yamcha cringed slightly. "I still can't believe you like onions. Extra...onions," he complained, taking a bite of his own pizza with much less flair.

"It's been too long," she explained through a mouth full of pizza. "Like, a month too long."

"You come here often?"

She nodded, licking her lips with deep satisfaction like a cat with cream. "Every other Friday after work."

He shot her a smile, the corner of his eyes crinkling. "Antonio's has offered to sponsor the Titan's next year."

"No shit?" She asked with genuine awe. She missed Yamcha's face falling fractionally at her foul mouth as she took another extra large bite of her pizza. "Wow. Lucky ducks. Are you guys going to file in here after each game for pizza like a bunch of little leaguers?" She smirked at him playfully.

"We're a little more mature than that, B." He leaned back in his chair, sipping on his bottled water and eyes roaming over the other tables.

…He wasn't joking.

Bulma's smirk fell.

She watched him thoughtfully.

"Is there something on your mind?" She prompted, staring at him cautiously.

Yamcha immediately faced her with a look of apology. He ran his hands through his hair nervously, giving it a light pat to smooth it back into its suave style. "I'm sorry. I'm just nervous about this date." He chuckled. "I didn't mean to sound like that."

Her eyes narrowed as she gazed at him warily, before turning her attention back to her pizza and popping a thick slice of artichoke into her mouth. "Um, Yamcha...this isn't a date." She stopped chewing and stared at him.

"No, no, of course not!" He chuckled anxiously, waving his hand in the air and leaning back in his seat with a casual air that his nervousness belied.

She raised her eyebrow at him, chewing her crust, before swallowing and glancing around for a napkin. Finding none in close proximity, she sucked the tips of her fingers before wiping them on her jeans.

"Gross, Bulma. There are napkins right there." He leaned over to an empty table, yanked some from the holder and tossed them in her direction.

Bulma's face fell with disbelief. "Oh my," she commented on his behavior dryly.

Yamcha looked away, visibly bristling.

Oh yes, she recognized this behavior. This was Yamcha's famous passive aggressive maneuvering. It was meant to make her feel guilty, while allowing him to be the good guy.

"What is wrong with _you_?" She asked quietly. "You've barely ate your pizza and you're already acting snooty. I haven't seen you in over three years and it's like our time apart never happened."

Yamcha continued to look out over the heads of the other customers, ignoring her even as he chewed the inside of his cheek with restrained displeasure.

How _dare_ he act so condescending?

She sipped on her Pepsi noisily, causing him to glance over with disapproval. "You used to be so laid back. Until you joined the Titans." She pronounced the name childishly, disrespectfully, even crossing her eyes a little. "What is wrong with you? I've met old people more fun than you. Relax, it's just a little pizza grease." She sucked up the last of her Pepsi, and glanced at the empty cup with disappointment.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked with quiet force, leaning in and startling her. "You used to actually take care of yourself." His eyes raked her form.

She grew instantly livid.

"You used to be so sweet. I could take you places," he continued. "It wasn't such an embarrassment to be out with you."

She felt a ball of ice churning in her stomach, numbing her. "I see." She tried looking into his eyes, tried to determine if he was being genuine or just lashing out, but he avoided her gaze. “Why did you even ask me out? Surely you had to have had the sense to know I'm not one of your idiotic fawning sluts."

There it was. Three years, and Bulma had finally grown bold enough to breach the issue of his infidelity.

”I’m going to get more soda," he said firmly, standing. "Let's just calm down and talk things through. We obviously need to get some things off our chest."

She knew he was just trying to make himself look like the good guy and make her seem over-emotional. She looked down at her hand on her cup with disembodied surprise. She was shaking indignantly. It seemed, even three years later and with no time to spare, he was trying to put her back in a box. _No box,_ a furious internal voice rebuffed. _No more boxes._

She looked down at her soda. It was down to its watery dregs. She felt a surge of hostility towards it. "I need more pop, too," she snarled, before standing and walking toward him.

They both walked stiffly to the soda fountain, queued in line behind a family fumbling with their drinks, without speaking to one another.

"I'm sorry," he finally uttered. "I just wanted to see you again. I just, I thought you'd be excited for me. I wanted to tell you….I'm being looked at for the major leagues."

He looked at her expectantly.

Bulma's eyes grew increasingly wider. "And what, you thought that since you're a big shot now I was just going to give it up again? Apology _not_ accepted."

His tone turned icy. "The romantic I am, I thought of the one person who'd known how badly I've wanted the major leagues all these years. I thought you'd be excited for me," he said accusingly. The family in front of them walked away quickly, glancing back at them, but Yamcha and Bulma didn't notice as they turned toward one another angrily.

"I see what this is about," she gasped. "You want me to moon over you. Pat you on the back and give you some victory pie. You just want someone to take care of you! Still haven't learned to cook for yourself, I see?”

"It's perfectly logical, Bulma," he replied with irritation under his breath. "You know you haven't been the same since I left. You know you need me, want me back.” As if incited by his own venom, Yamcha just kept going. “Your mother caters to your dad. So does my mom. It's the natural order of things.” Bulma felt bile rise in her throat. “It's this stubbornness,” he spat, gesturing at her shapeless, overall-clad form, “that is exactly the reason we didn't work. How can I go the next step with a girl who thinks engines are more important than taking care of the man that works so hard for her?"

 _"You weren't even working!"_ Bulma finally erupted, voice traveling over the surrounding tables. " _I_ was paying our bills. _I_ was making dinner every night. _I_ wasn't allowed to go out on Friday nights. I was pulling all your weight, and I was making excuses for your walking all over me!"

"Lower your voice," he whispered urgently, eyes darting around.

"And _I_ broke up with _you!"_ She snarled.

"Is there a problem here?"

The two turned towards the intruders, who stood a few feet from them calmly. Both wore long, black wool coats and stared at Yamcha with cool gazes. She'd have recognized them anywhere. Raditz's hair was as lush as ever, falling over his back as he sucked his beer through a straw with detached amusement. Nappa's bald head gleamed in the bar light.

"We can't hear the game over your ruckus," Raditz explained with complaint, leveling his gaze at Bulma.

Without a second thought, she stuck her tongue out at him.

Raditz's eyes narrowed, and he stuck his tongue out at her with even more sauciness than she did.

"Do you know these guys?" Yamcha asked her with a hint of accusation. "These assholes threw peanuts at us in the dugout all last night before we had them escorted out." He glared at the lawyers.

"Yeah. I know them. And I wish you had tripped on a peanut shell and broke your face, you egotistical, backwards jerk!"

"Real witty!" He yelled in her face.

"What's your problem, man," Raditz asked Yamcha boredly. "Leave her alone. She didn't do anything to you."

"Yeah. Leave her alone before we have to remove you from the premises," Nappa commanded with amusement, cracking his knuckles with a vile smirk.

"Hey folks, keep it down or take it outside!" Someone yelled at them from behind the bar.

“Get bent!" Bulma yelled back.

"Real lady like," Yamcha countered.

She wagged her finger at him. "I was through with you three years ago, and I am STILL _so_ over you!"

Yamcha stepped closer to her, sneering down in her face, causing Nappa and Raditz to take a step forward—

only to be parted by another person, in the same style of sophisticated wool coat but much shorter and oozing much, much more menace.

Yamcha didn't notice as he put his face in Bulma's, causing her to flinch, a reflex she never thought she'd experience again. "Well," he seethed, "I can't believe I was willing to lower myself to your level again. I thought you'd be happy for me. Instead, you spent the whole date stuffing your face, even though you should be watching your waistline." Bulma sucked in air. "You're not worth dating, let alone fucking, and you never will be," she heard Yamcha say from down his nose through a sort of tunnel vision, and she slowly watched his finger come towards her to jab her insultingly in the chest, "and that's why you're not woman enough to be with me—"

Yamcha's tirade was shut up forcefully by Vegeta's fist slamming into his jaw, which emitted a crack as Bulma watched it in slow motion shift unnaturally from his face.

"She's too good for you, you joke," Vegeta said beside her as Yamcha squirmed on the floor, holding his jaw.

Raditz and Nappa burst into giggles. "He's making me miss the game, the prick," Nappa complained to Vegeta, downing the rest of his beer.

Bulma's head swiveled towards Vegeta, regarding him as though he'd grown another head, just as the same voice from behind the bar screamed. "Alright, you fucks! I'm calling the cops!"

"Oh, shut up!" Bulma and Vegeta craned their necks and yelled.

Only for Vegeta to narrowly miss the fist headed for his temple.

Vegeta stiffened, regarded Yamcha with offended fury. "Why you—"

Customers were tripping over each other, filing out of the restaurant, and distantly, sirens wailed.

"Come at me, you pointy haired piece of—"

Nappa shut Yamcha up with a nauseatingly hard fist to the stomach.

"Oh shit!" Bulma squeaked.

To the men's amused bafflement, Bulma broke the tension by leaning over and filling up her cup of Pepsi from the fountain. She giggled nervously.

The three men stared at her wryly.

"Don't want to leave without a refill,” she explained. She popped a lid on it and turned back towards them. "Okay. Come on, boys." She pushed the men gently towards the door. "Let's get out of here," she encouraged with the calm authority of a school marm as people swarmed Yamcha on the floor, trying to help him up.

Vegeta shrugged off her hand before storming out of the building. Bulma, sandwiched between Nappa and Raditz, followed him out with a look of concerned confusion.

"What is he—"

Vegeta was already slamming the door to his Porsche, barely a second before the engine roared to life. And then he was peeling out of the parking lot, the rear end of the sports car swinging the opposite way with the force of his speed before shooting down the street.

"Well, that was crazy fun," chimed Raditz. "Was that pretty boy your boyfriend?"

Bulma looked up at him as the volume of the sirens got louder. "Ex. Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected him, cocking her eyebrow at the not-so-innocent curiosity laced through his words. "Well, thanks, guys. You have my permission to throw peanuts at him anytime."

That's when she realized Nappa and Raditz still had their beer mugs in hand. Raditz sucked on his bright pink straw until it fizzled noisily with air, and Bulma cringed.

"Yep. No problem," Nappa issued blandly. "Welp, we better get out of here. See ya later, alligator." Nappa raised his glass to her before turning the other way.

The two men disappeared into the dark alley, Raditz shooting her a wink before they faded into the alley shadows.

Bulma stood slack jawed, staring at the space they left off before glancing down the street in the direction Vegeta took off. She heard the door of Antonio's open, Yamcha's bellowing rising from the bowels of the restaurant threaded through alarmingly loud sirens.

“Oh, gosh." Bulma jumped up and shuffled quickly to her bus, sucking on her Pepsi. "Better skidaddle.”

* * *

Bulma shut the front door loudly and swept into the apartment. "You won't believe what just happened!" She yelled, stopping in the center of the living room with her arms outstretched, forgetting that she was avoiding Chi Chi and the apartment.

Chi Chi scurried in, her silk jammy pants swishing around her slender legs, her eyes wide. "What on Earth? What just happened?"

Bulma couldn't help the wide grin that split her face. "Oh. My god. It was just like a movie!" Bulma hopped back and forth on her heels a little in her excitement. "Yamcha just got knocked out by Vegeta and Nappa."

"What?" Chi Chi balked.

"I know! Isn't it ridiculous?" She put her Pepsi down on the breakfast bar, giggling at the memory. "They called the cops on us and everything." Bulma's face melted with dawning horror. "Oh no. Nooo. They'll never let me back at Antonio's again."

"Why in the hell did they punch out Yamcha?" Chi Chi shrieked incredulously.

"He was being his characteristic turd self. That's why," Bulma replied, a little defensively.

"Yamcha is not a turd," Chi Chi contended. "Is he okay?!"

Bulma's jaw dropped. "Yes, he is a turd. He's a turd if there ever was one."

"Says the woman sleeping with the king of turds!" Chi Chi countered loudly. "Bulma, I set you two up on that date! Yamcha emailed me asking me to do it, and I had hoped it would do you some good!"

"What?" Bulma drew in a breath sharply.

"I set you two up together, you dunderhead, and not surprisingly, you ruined it!"

Bulma stared at her friend in dismal stupefaction.

Chi Chi rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "That didn't come out like I intended it to," she muttered, only mildly apologetic.

"No." Bulma's hoarse voice broke through the room, stilling Chi Chi. "No, that's exactly what you mean. Tell me, Chi Chi, do I embarrass you?"

Chi Chi turned red with mortification as she realized Bulma had caught her in her scheme and wasn't going to allow her to dig her way out.

"Yeah. That's what I thought," Bulma whispered despondently.

She strode towards her bedroom, leaving Chi Chi alone in her growing dismay.

"Bulma, I'm sorry," she rushed, taking off after her friend. "I didn't mean it like that. I was just trying to help—"

Bulma was shoving clothes into a duffle bag.

"What are you doing?" Chi Chi cried out.

Bulma was tearing through her drawers and shoving things into the bag, and to Chi Chi's horror, Bulma looked up at her with watery eyes, her face puffy and twisted with emotion.

"I'm tired of you treating me like I'm crippled." She slammed the last drawer shut and swung her backpack over her shoulder. "You'll have your remaining $200 in rent for the end of the month. I'll send you the check tomorrow."

Chi Chi watched her friend stride down the hall with choking emotion. "Bulma, please!" She pleaded after her, brokenly. "Don't go."

Bulma reached for the front door knob, and then turned. She looked up from underneath wayward curls with anguish. "Yamcha was emotionally abusive. And controlling. That's why I broke up with him. Guess how he behaved tonight?" Chi Chi stared at her friend with downward spiraling horror. "Vegeta hit him only after he told me I'd never amount to anything." She looked at her friend steadily, one tear escaping down her round cheek. "I don't need a man. I don't need a mother or a wife. I needed a friend, but I guess I'm too much of an embarrassment to even deserve that. If you like Yamcha so much, why don't you go marry him. You deserve each other," she whispered rashly through her teeth before shutting the door behind her on Chi Chi's anguished face.

* * *

Bulma tore at her hair a little and dumped her head into her arms, rolling it against the cold steering wheel.

"Okay," she whispered to herself hoarsely. "Okay, calm down, you."

She reached for a handkerchief on the floor and blew her nose into it, making a mental note not to forget she did and use it in her hair. She glanced into the bus's rearview mirror.

She looked terrible.

She opened the glove box, which fell open loosely on its hinges, and ransacked it for makeup. Any makeup. Finding none, because she didn’t wear makeup, she bent over the passenger seat, shifter pressing into her abdomen, and rustled through the trash on the floor before chirping "A-ha!"

Clumsily straightening herself, she clutched one of Chi Chi’s spare drugstore powder compacts. Smoothing it on her face profusely, hoping she was using it the right way, she tossed it onto her dash and gave herself a last cursory look in the mirror. She took a deep breath through her nose and unbuckled her seat belt, the cold metal catching on the lock mechanism. She yanked it out, and it gave, jerking back and hitting the window as it reeled into itself.

She hopped out of the bus and shut the door with a hollow clang behind her. She knew he was here because both his Ghia and his Porsche were parked underneath the trellised carport.

Bulma walked slowly up the sidewalk, her heart pounding a little tattoo in her chest. Making her way up the stairs, the well-sealed wood thumping under her boots, she took a deep breath.

Her knuckles hovered over the address on the door, three metal digits neatly nailed into the cherry wood door.

She knocked.

And waited.

Until she was shivering, and with a smoky huff in the cold air, knocked again.

Feeling an anti-climactic, sinking sense of disappointment, she stepped away from the door. She turned and headed back towards the stairs, shoving her hands in her coat pockets against the cold and biting her lip.

She heard the door open behind her, and turned.

He leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his bare, wide chest. He stared at her calmly, and she stared back at him over her shoulder uncertainly.

"Well?" He asked gruffly, before moving away from the door frame. Although he'd disappeared from view...the door didn't close.

Bulma made her way uncertainly back towards his door.

His back was pressed up against the open door, his slender, muscle-packed waist jutting out as he slumped back, waiting for her. His eyes followed her in, and she shuffled in until she stood in the doorway, arms crossed protectively over her chest.

They stared at one another in the lamp light spilling from the front room. His gaze drifted over her features, noting her red rimmed eyes and her slack, despondent expression.

"You look like shit," he said softly.

Her eyes narrowed.

He reached out and rested his warm hand on her jaw, and then he leaned in slowly and kissed her.

She clutched the hand cupping her face and returned the kiss.

Moving her slightly away from the doorway without pulling away, he pushed the door closed with his free hand. He felt her light breath against his open lips between kisses and he captured them with his mouth. Tracing the curve of her ear with his thumb, he thumbed the soft spot where her neck met her jaw with resounding pleasure.

Sighing into his mouth, her hands emptied themselves from her pockets and trailed down his collar to palm his warm chest, its familiar solidness comforting. Taking a deep breath through her nose as they kissed, she inhaled his cozy scent of clean cotton and spice and lingering bar soap. He pulled away momentarily to kiss his way down her jaw, and she took the opportunity to rub her cheek against his. It was like he emitted some bad vibes-disrupting force field, given how her brain just turned to mush around him.

He startled her when he rumbled, "You interrupted me."

"Interrupted what?" She asked woozily.

Vegeta drew her closer and gestured to the inside of his condo. "Eating, woman. Sleeping."

That's when she smelled it. She was already drifting out of his arms and towards the stove.

"Oooooh." She pinched a piece of steak between her fingertips from the stir fry in the large wok and popped it into her mouth. "Mmm," she praised him, her eyes widening.

"Get out of there," he griped, inserting himself between her and the stove to give the food a stir, but not before she reached around his other side and snatched another piece. "Hands off!" He snapped, although not unkindly.

"Do you want it back?" She asked before sticking out her tongue and showing him the chewed up, sorry-looking piece of steak mush.

He turned in distaste, and she smiled, swallowing, forgetting everything else but him with growing pleasure. She snapped the waistband of his shorts playfully. He snapped back around and grabbed her face in his hand, kissing her firmly on the mouth. "No one eats my food without paying for it," he purred against her mouth before lowering his head to her neck and sucking lightly. Her eyes widened as she felt him grow against her from under his thin shorts.

"I just did," she contended throatily. He growled and pulled back, giving her a disapproving scowl and then shoving his hands in her hair and kissing her hard on the mouth. His tongue pressed against her lips and she opened easily for him, kissing him back with deep approval. His shoulders were wide, and she traced the cartography of his body with her hands, skimming his chest, over his ridged sides, down to cup his hard hips. His hands in her hair, his mouth in hers, and she was there, somewhere, floating in the clouds he was making of her head.

He slapped her ass and she fell from the clouds hard. "Ow!" She frowned. "Hey, watch it, buddy."

"You're preventing me from eating my dinner," he explained remorselessly, before turning back to the stove, switching off the burner and moving the pan to a cooler one. She ran her hand absentmindedly down his back and peered over his thick arm, which stirred the stir fry. Her mouth watered.

"Looks like there's enough in there for me." She smiled sweetly up at him.

He snorted. "You saw wrong."

He was spooning it onto a large red dinner plate and growled as Bulma reached into the cabinets and grabbed one of her own. She gave him a wink, and he plopped a helping of stir fry onto her plate with narrowed eyes. "Hmph."

Reaching into the cabinets and grabbing the chili sauce, he routinely uncapped it and dumped it over his rice. He froze as Bulma shrieked, and turned to look at her with horrified reprisal. He didn't have time to blink before she slapped his hand.

"What's the point of making dinner if you're just going to put that much hot sauce on it?"

"Don't tell me how much hot sauce I can put on my food," he snarled defensively.

"Jeez, have a side of stir fry with that chili sauce why don't you," she teased as she spooned some extra onions from the pan onto her plate, smiling under her breath.

He cocked an eyebrow at her as he pulled an extra large piece of steak off his fork with his teeth.

She took an experimental bite, and her eyes lidded with pleasure. "Thanks to you, I never got to finish my pizza." She shot him a disapproving look.

"It sounded like it wasn't going to get eaten anyway," he disputed quietly.

She put her fork and plate down gently, and turned to him, brows knit with worry. "About that," she started, mouth parting as she tried to form the words.

"I don't want to hear it," he stated roughly.

"You will hear it." She frowned. "Thank you."

He growled down at his plate with his mouth full.

"Thank you for sticking up for me."

His eyes shot up towards her, and he regarded her with dark intensity.

"It was awfully considerate of you. You know, considering you're a jerk and all." She smiled at his narrowed eyes. She placed a kiss on his cheek quickly, and pulled away blushing. "Anyways. That's all that has to be said. Just, thank you."

He stared at her with surprise, chewing slowly.

"Mmm, the steak is so tender. You don’t get skillet steak like this by flash frying it.” His head tilted towards her with cat-like curiosity. She licked her lips, glancing down at her plate to stab at it with her fork, when she spotted papers strewn over the counters. She leaned over, glancing over them. "Doing work on a Saturday night?"

Swiftly, Vegeta's hands came slamming down on top of them, sweeping them out of eyesight.

But not before she had one pinned beneath her own hand. She looked hard at the memo, which seemed to come into focus with each small breath, each beat of her heart, punctuated, again and again, by the memo's header:

_Subject: Bulma Briefs_

Her eyes ran over the text unyieldingly. She saw Vegeta move towards it out of the corner of her eye, and she put up her hand stiffly.

He stilled.

_BARDOCK VEJITA AND SONS LEGAL COUNSEL_

_PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM_

_To: All Associates_

_From: no Ouji, Vejita and Son, Bardock_

_RE: Freeman Case and Compensation_

_This past year has shown unparalleled success for our firm, thanks in no small part to our associates. We are pleased to announce that we are offering a salary bonus to whichever associate can successfully put the Freeman case six feet underground. After extensive research into the neighborhood under investigation, evidence points to 'B's Dubs' business owner Bulma Briefs as the primary instigator in the failure so far to finalize the case._

_The salary of the associate who can uncover her role in the prosecution and divide Ms. Briefs from the legal counsel at Baba and Sons will see their salary raised by ten percent and a chance for a senior position at our firm._

_Let's end this fiscal year with an unrivaled achievement for our firm, and by passing on our appreciation for loyalty to our business. We are delighted to have this opportunity to recognize your hard work._

_no Ouji and Son_

Bulma looked up at Vegeta with wavering vision.

"Have you gotten what you wanted from me yet," she issued thickly, "or will you be playing with my emotions until you've successfully secured your position at Bardock Vejita and Sons?"

Vegeta wouldn't meet her gaze.

"You coward," she spat. "You're no different from him."

He looked up at her cruelly then. "Well, would you rather me fuck you before I ask you to leave, or later in court?"

She stopped breathing.

A sob escaped her throat. She turned and fled, and when the door swung shut behind her stiffly retreating form, Vegeta snatched the plate from the counter and hurled it at the wall with a bellow.


	8. Chapter 8

Bulma curled herself closer into the old, pilled blanket and threw her arm over her eyes to block out the streetlight. Her bare foot knocked against the back bench seat as she shifted, and she yanked it away from the frigid steel with a hiss. She tried stuffing herself into a tense ball against the cold, her knees in her chest to keep out the shivers. So far, sleep alluded her, and she stared at the metal base of the front seat a few inches from her face.

Sleeping in her bus wasn't working out as well as she'd hoped.

A wave of resentment crashed over her, followed by a stronger wave of despair.

It was the third night she'd achieved getting no sleep in her bus, and truth be told, she felt like she deserved it.

* * *

Vegeta no Ouji was giving his intern a shake down, and everyone in the office knew it.

"Oi," Nappa grumbled, glaring at his computer screen as he pulled the newspaper further over his ears to block out the sounds of a super pissed no Ouji and the crying of another intern lost.

Raditz swung his feet and rested his heels on Nappa's desk with a bang, running his fingers around a lock of hair that had escaped his ponytail.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Raditz complained, ticking his shiny black shoes back and forth. Nappa swatted them off his desk and pulled the newspaper down over his eyes.

"You know exactly what the big deal is," he contended with annoyance.

Raditz rolled his eyes and turned his head to gaze out the long windows that looked out over the West City horizon, just as Bardock appeared behind him and smacked him in the back of the head.

"Ow! What the—"

Seeing it was his father, Raditz just sunk farther into his seat and pouted with a huff.

"Why is it every time I come around this corner, neither of you are doing any work?" Bardock snapped. He leaned against the cubicle wall. "Remind me again how you two dumb fucks got through school and got the certs to become actually functioning attorneys?"

"Raditz blew off all his teachers," Nappa sniggered, his shoulders shaking as he erupted into a fit of giggles. Raditz rose to smack him but Bardock slammed him back into his chair with a hand on his shoulder.

Bardock swung his body into an empty chair before rolling forward and putting his feet on Nappa's desk authoritatively.

"Oh my god, what in the hell is wrong with Vegeta lately," Bardock griped, resting his head in his palm with a look of supreme irritation.

"He hasn't been getting any," Raditz suggested with a shrug.

Bardock snorted. "I don't know what in the hell that no Ouji does in his personal time, but I doubt getting laid will fix that boy."

Nappa and Raditz shared a look.

"Dad," Raditz began slowly. "What if I told you something...something highly confidential. Something that wasn't allowed to pass the confines of this sacred circle."

"Let's pinky swear on it." Nappa was already leaning forward and extending his crooked finger out to Bardock, who swatted it away.

"Don't tell me you guys know what's wrong with the kid. Vegeta is always a ball buster, but this is getting ridiculous. I'm about to go have a talk with him. Our clients are going to run away in terror if he keeps this up. I can't promote him if he scares away all our business."

"Maybe you should go talk to him about Bulma Briefs," Raditz suggested delicately. He and Nappa shared a look.

"Bulma Briefs? Why does that name ring a bell?" Bardock frowned at them.

"She's the owner of B's Dubs," Nappa offered. "The monkey wrench in the cogs of this stupid Freeman case."

"Not the Freeman case." Bardock whined. "If I never have to hear that fucking Congressman's name again….What does she have to do with it?"

Nappa and Raditz shared another look.

"Just tell me already!" Bardock yelled.

"Welllll," Raditz began. "She's stalling the case, summoning up all sorts of ghoulies and shenanigans for the prosecution, right? She's a Brief—as in, the Briefs of Capsule Corporation." Bardock was resting his hand on his knuckles, scowling in consideration, but nodded at his son to continue. "She's got friends in high places and she's a smart cookie. And B's Dubs is in the heart of the gerrymandered district and she just happens to be a charitable, bleeding heart liberal..."

"That's been established," Bardock complained, although he listened raptly.

"Yeah, well, anyway," Raditz continued.

"Vegeta fell for her," Nappa interrupted.

Bardock's head swung sharply to Nappa, who swiveled in his too small chair with glee. "What?" He snapped.

"Vegeta likes her. I think they had a thing going on," Raditz said conspiratorially.

"How do you know this?"

"The guy punched out her ex at Antonio's pub the other day."

"Vegeta's a hot head. So what."

"No. Like, he saw her come in and couldn't take his eyes off her. We were worried he was going to have a nuclear melt down watching her and her boyfriend."

“Ex-boyfriend," Nappa reminded him.

"Whatever."

"Don't forget he flattened us when we called her a bitch that night at the game."

"Yeah, and he wouldn't go to Bazooka's with us."

"Yeah."

"What in the hell does that have to do with anything?" Bardock asked, repulsed. "Vegeta's not scum like you two. When does he ever go to Bazooka's with you anyway. I thought he was asexual, frankly."

Raditz and Nappa shook their head, lips thinned conspiratorially.

Nappa leaned forward over his desk.

"We saw them one night," he whispered. "Doin' it. In her car."

Bardock narrowed his eyes at them.

"Are you sure?" He asked quietly.

"I wouldn't forget a pair of tits like that," Raditz assured him.

Bardock leaned back and ran his finger thoughtfully over his chin. "That's against company policy," he said to himself thoughtfully.

"Exactly," the two told him simultaneously.

"What, you think he broke it off with her or something? It's not like Vegeta to put anything before work. Anything," Bardock argued. "Least of all a woman. I was starting to wonder if he swung the other way."

"No man." Raditz shook his head forcefully. "No man, I would know."

"Hmmm." Bardock stared at the ceiling. "She's gotta be using him," he concluded.

"I've known Bulma for awhile," Raditz offered, before swiveling in his chair. "She has a heart of gold. It's disgusting. I don't think that's the case here."

"Yeah, well, what do you know." Bardock stood up suddenly. "You've got a case that needs reviewed by Thursday and you're back here circle jerking."

"Dad," Raditz interrupted him. "Ask Goku."

"About what?" He asked incredulously.

"Goku's harpy is best friends with her. They even live together."

"What?" Bardock asked sharply. "Is Chi Chi in on this, too?"

"Just...just ask him about Bulma and Vegeta, Dad. That's all I'm saying."

"Yeeeeah, whatever," Bardock said dismissively, already turning away.

Nappa and Raditz shared a look.

"You know Vegeta's going to kill you if he hears about this."

"Yeah, well, I owe him forty bucks anyway." Raditz shrugged. "I have it coming.”

* * *

"Chi Chi," Goku whined, "all I'm saying is, we need to eat. It's nine o' clock. I haven't eaten since 4. Cheech, you gotta get off the couch so we can go grab something."

"Touch luck, Goku," Chi Chi bit out from beneath the blanket on the couch.

"But I'm hungry," he complained.

Chi Chi yanked the blankets down from her face and stared at Goku sternly. "Go pick something up, then."

"What, without you?" Goku looked genuinely confused.

Chi Chi sighed and sat up, before pulling her man down next to her to lean against him companionably.

"I'm sorry," she said listlessly. "I am just not in the mood to eat right now."

Goku moved a stray lock of hair from her face. "Cheech, this isn't like you."

Chi Chi hung her head. "I don't wanna be me right now, Goku," she said softly into her lap.

"Cheech. You've gotta tell me what's wrong." He looked at her grimly. "What happened between you and Bulma?"

Chi Chi's head came slowly up, and her dark eyes watered with effusive guilt. "If I tell you, you can't think less of me."

"Chi Chi," Goku sighed, "I won't. Just tell me." _I'm hungry,_ he thought to himself.

Chi Chi exhaled deeply and clasped her hands together in her blanketed lap. "Well, where should I start. I...I kind of...Well. Yamcha contacted me recently. He was very sweet and polite and we reconnected over old times."

"Did he make a move on you?" Goku interrupted with sudden anger.

"No!" She crowed. "Really, Goku. He's not my type. Anyway. He kinda, well, insinuated he wanted to get back with Bulma. And...I kind of took up his offer."

Goku looked at her with steely concentration. She shrunk into herself.

"I kind of...set them up behind her back. And it went awry. And she found out. And she moved out." Her lower lip shook.

"Chi Chi," Goku reprimanded her gently.

She threw her small hands up in the air. "I was just trying to help her out."

"Cheech, if she doesn't want to date, you shouldn't make her date."

"I know!" She whined defensively.

"You tried to get her with the one person you really shouldn't have, too. You owe her an apology."

"I know!"

"Why would you try to get her back with him, anyway? He’s a terrible choice for her."

"What do you mean?" She looked warily at the man who was suddenly the prestidigitator of matchmaking.

"I mean, she was just really unhappy with him. And he didn't treat her right. That makes you look like you don't care for her happiness. Anyway, I thought she was seeing Vegeta."

"She wasn't seeing Vegeta," she said with a sarcastic chuckle and a small eye roll. "She was just...seeing him without his pants on."

"I don't think you know your friend as well as you think you do," he said roughly, and she flinched at his tone.

"What do you mean? I've known her for years! I think I know my own best friend," she contested snappily.

"No, I don't think you do. I think you were being meddlesome, Cheech, and I don't know that you deserve to be forgiven."

Chi Chi's eyes widened, and watered.

"Bulma doesn't go lightly into a relationship. Bulma takes her friendships seriously, and I think she's just as sensitive about who she chooses as a romantic partner. She obviously likes Vegeta, and I know he likes her, too. And she told you flatly she didn't want you setting her up with anyone. So why would you go against her wishes?"

Chi Chi's voice warbled at his obvious disappointment with her. "I just...I wanted my friend to be happy. And I wanted to go the next step with her. I didn't want to leave her behind." Chi Chi began to sniffle, her voice getting thick. "She hasn't been herself since she left Yamcha," she began sobbing. "I don't care what she chose to do with her life. I don't care that she's a mechanic and not a lawyer. She's like her dad; she's an absent minded genius, and that's great. I don't care that she comes home dirty and that she eats too many chips and swigs down too much soda. She just brings out all these maternal feelings in me sometimes. I just don't want her to feel stuck and alone while we all move on without her." She buried her head in her hands.

"I don't think Bulma would feel the same way," he chided her gently, gripping her chin lightly to look her in the eyes. "I think Bulma knows exactly what she's doing. She's trying to figure out what she wants in her life, after trying to make other people happy for so long. Maybe she hasn't gotten to the point where she really knows if that's where she wants to settle, but you can't rush a person's learning experience, Cheech. She has to come to another relationship on her own time. She has to decide for herself what she's willing to clean up and what clutter helps her be creative. You can't do that for her."

"I know that! I knew that the whole time!"

"Then I think you've got some explaining to do to yourself, too."

Goku stood up.

"Where are you going?" She cried out.

"To get us some food," he explained somberly.

"You're coming back?" She asked, her voice breaking.

"Yes," he sighed. "I'm coming back. I'm not gonna leave you, Cheech. But I can't tell you if Bulma will. I don't know that she should." He stepped backwards with a sober expression.

"Kung pow chicken?" He asked softly.

Chi Chi nodded without looking up from her hands and sniffled.

"Alright. Turn on West City Idol, and I'll be right back.”

* * *

Goku hopped from foot to foot in the cold as the phone rang in his ear. "Thanks," he said quickly to the cashier who handed him his coney dog from the food truck, and he smushed it into his face as the phone on the other line picked up.

"Hello?"

"Bulma?" He asked through a mouth full of cheese dog.

"Goku?" She asked uncertainly.

Goku swallowed the bite whole and cringed as it stuck in his throat. "Hey, yeah, it's me."

"What's up?"

"Oh, I'm just picking Chi Chi and I up some food at China Ma Ma Express. Well, I stopped to have a hot dog while I waited for my order, to be more specific." The door to China Ma Ma Express rang as he walked back inside, and he sat down at an empty booth with his foil wrapped hot dog.

"How is Mai Lee's uncle doing?"

"Oh, he's fine. He's out of the hospital now, and she has some sort of weird condition now where she has to get her toe fungus water boarded out or something every week,” he informed her through another mouthful.

"Lovely. Well, I will make sure to send them a get well card."

"From where, might I ask?"

"Huh?"

He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Where exactly is the return address from?"

He heard Bulma sigh.

"Did Chi Chi put you up to this?"

"No." He tried to assure her with as much sincerity over the phone as he could manage as he licked ketchup from his upper lip. "Not at all. Really, she didn't. She's on the couch at home right now, wallowing in guilt."

Silence.

"I'm not saying you should feel bad about it. In fact, I don't think you should. That's not why I'm calling. Actually, I was hoping we could talk about something else after Chi Chi and I eat. I'm just...wondering where to show up."

Another sigh. "Please don't make me regret this, Goku."

"I won't," he assured her implacably.

"Meet me at my shop."

"You got it."

"Goku!" Came Mai Lee's shriek from behind the counters. "Yours is ready!"

"Gotta go," he whispered conspiratorially as he stood, fumbling with the phone and his hot dog and confused for a second by which one to put to his ear. "See you in a few."

* * *

Goku and Bulma lay side by side on the hood of the old VW Scirocco, watching the stars wink at them from the velvet night sky with their heads pillowed on their forearms.

"Look, there's Venus." Bulma pointed low on the horizon where a bright star glittered.

"How do you know?" Goku asked, relaxed.

"By how bright it is, and its position in the sky. Look, it's passing through Aries right now."

"How do you know that's Aries?"

"It looks like a ram’s head. And it's always in that northern celestial hemisphere, over there."

"Oh. Aries, like the astrological sign?"

"Yeah, kind of, if you wanna get pagan and fun with it." She smiled at him warmly.

"Vegeta is an Aries," he said quietly, thoughtlessly. "His birthday was last Sunday."

She stared at his reposed features stiffly. "Hm. I can see that."

"I'm a Leo. What are you?"

"I'm an Aries, too," she issued quietly.

"Bulma, I don't remember your birthday being any time soon!"

She kicked his foot. "It's next week, and you know that."

"Yeah, Chi Chi has only told me a thousand times." He smiled at the sky before turning toward her. "Have you really been staying here the entire time?"

"Yep," Bulma confirmed wryly.

"In Barnaby?"

"Yyyyyep," she drawled again, before sending him a quick smile at his use of her pet name for her bus. He was the only one who found her obsession with old VW's interesting. "Until I said screw it and started camping out on a spare bench seat behind the cash register."

"You don't have heat in there either, though."

"Yeah, but I can safely hook up a space heater in there. Might cause a fire if I did it in the bus."

"Oh."

They stared at the night sky in companionable silence.

"How long are you planning on crashing in your shop?"

Bulma rolled her head on the backs of her arms to gaze at him soberly. "As long as I have to."

"No one's making you do this, Bulma," he countered gently. "No one wants you to do this."

Her brows dipped into a severe scowl, and she turned from him. "I don't care what anyone wants."

"Why not crash at your parent's house? I mean, they only live on the other side of the city. You're close to them. They wouldn't mind. Think of all of the cookies your mom would bake for you," Goku finished dreamily.

"I don't want them to think I'm a failure," she replied softly.

"They wouldn't."

"Everyone else does."

"I don't."

"You're a gem, Goku. Not everyone is as awesome as you are."

"You know who is awesome?"

Sensing where he was going, Bulma turned her head in the opposite direction stubbornly.

"You are."

She huffed.

"You're one of the coolest people I know! You're a successful business owner. You're a champion for civil rights. Everyone in this neighborhood adores you. Your parents adore you. Yamcha thought you were so cool he tried to get back with you."

She snorted.

"Don't let anyone make you feel worthless,” Goku finished softly. “Not even Chi Chi."

She turned to him then, eyes brimming with emotion.

"Bulma," he continued, less gently, "you hold several doctorate degrees and honorary degrees. You're super smart. You're super talented."

"Maybe I've peaked. Maybe I'm destined to be a crazy cat lady the rest of my life."

"No, not you. You're too full of energy. Especially when it comes to people. You're always there for your friends, even when they mess up and forget to be there for you."

A tear escaped the corner of her eye.

"You're a total catch." He said with as much valley girl twang as he could manage, winking at her, and she smiled back at him. "If you wanna date, date. If you don't wanna date, don't. Don't base your worth on what other people think of you."

"She's my best friend, Goku. If she thinks I'm fucking up, I must be fucking up."

"Chi Chi is just a very maternal person," Goku tried to explain, slowly. "She didn't have a mom, and she kinda had to be her own mom. She had to take care of her dad. You're just so laid back sometimes, she gets to thinking she needs to encourage you, help you out. She does the same thing to me."

"She's controlling," Bulma bristled. "I had enough of that dictating with Yamcha."

"Yeah, but she genuinely cares about you. With all her heart. When I left her tonight, she was crying into her pillow. She knows she did wrong. She owes you an apology...but I think you might feel better if you forgave her, too."

Bulma suddenly hopped off the hood of the car and took a few steps in the other direction, before sending Goku a frustrated, pained look. "You said you weren't coming over to reconcile us."

Goku sighed. "I did. And I wasn't lying." He sat up and put his elbows on his knees. "I actually have something I need to give you."

"What is it?" She asked with confusion.

Goku hopped off the car agilely and made his way toward her.

He stood in front of her, towering over her, before he pulled something from his pocket and extended it to her, the object tucked loosely between his fingers.

It was a business card.

She pulled it daintily from his grip and took a look at it.

It was Vegeta's business card.

Her expression grew dark.

"Turn it over," Goku instructed her.

She did.

_I'm sorry._

Her head snapped up to regard Goku with contempt. "I don't care." She let the card slide from her fingers and flutter to the ground, where it rested askew on the gravel in the dark.

"An apology from Vegeta is a rare thing," Goku explained with a hint of worry, but Bulma just continued walking back toward her shop, stopping at the front door to look over her shoulder.

"And my getting walked all over will be, too." She opened the door and slipped inside, and Goku heard the slide of the lock, shutting them all out.

* * *

Today was the day.

She had made sure Roy and Bev found somewhere to sit where they could rest their canes without tripping anyone. She'd chauffeured Maria and her oldest children in the Bus, since they didn't own a vehicle and the public Metro would have made them over an hour late to the ruling. She'd cleaned out the Bus last week, so they could jump around the old thing with excited abandon. She'd let Marco honk it as they pulled into the court house parking lot, alerting everyone that they'd arrived on such a grim day with hope and courage.

Getting out of the Bus in heels wasn't as easy as she'd hoped, but she managed it with dignity. Little Mariana commented on Bulma's bright shade of red lipstick, and Bulma had thanked her with a tickle. Even her father and mother had made it, and her mother complimented her on her dress and blazer, ooh'ing and aww'ing at her heels, which were a whole scandalous two inches from the ground.

She'd forgot just how much strength and purpose could be found in helping others, and she was respecting them by expecting as much grace from herself as possible.

They'd filed into the court house, and once she'd accounted for everyone, she made her way up to Eighteen, who stood at the head of the defense, surveying the room with a cold, calculating gaze. Her grey suit jacket and skirt were severely tailored to her slim, tall form and made her look even more austere. She watched Bulma walk toward her without giving away any emotion, until Bulma reached her side, when she leaned down and said into Bulma's ear, her cornflower, iron straight hair brushing Bulma's neck, “Look at how foxy Bardock looks today."

Bulma fortified her mental walls and glanced over at the defense.

Bardock leaned his hip on the table, talking quietly with Congressman Freeman. Turles sat in one of the seats, his fingers steepled against one another, swiveling impatiently back and forth in his chair.

"Vegeta isn't here," Eighteen answered for her.

The floor was spinning. "Where is he?" Bulma asked dumbly.

"I thought Goku filled you in on that," Juu said dryly.

Bulma frowned. "Goku just gave me his stupid business card."

Eighteen smiled coquettishly.

Bulma eyeballed the room, looking for the elusive, spiky-haired jerk.

"He's not here, Bulma, and he's not going to be here. Just sit down. We have this covered. You can rest easy."

Bulma made her way back to her seat beside her mother and father and hoped to Kami that things started making sense soon.

And given that Eighteen and Baba smashed the defense into smithereens—and given that the official adjudicating the case called Freeman a feckless bastard who would doubtfully see another term in office—and given her neighbor's shrieks of joy at the hard won ruling in their favor—

—and given that Bardock had stared at her lividly from across the room once the court house had started emptying—

nothing seemed like it would make sense any time soon.

In fact, it wasn't until Raditz and Nappa showed up at her shop the following week with a 30-pack of cheap booze in each hand and crooked smiles that things started to make sense.


	9. Chapter 9

She should have known better than to even entertain them as they shuffled in the door.

Bulma's lips thinned and she wiped away a bead of sweat that slid down her temple before shutting off the engine of the Beetle she'd been working on. She absently slicked back the wayward curls that stuck to her damp forehead with the backs of her hands. She'd taken care to brush her hair this morning and put it back in a neat bun, and she straightened with a new assurance that the men noticed silently.

Clearly, Nappa and Raditz didn't even know where to begin.

"Ummm. We brought beer," Raditz informed her enthusiastically, and Nappa raised his bulky pack without any strain at all.

"Mmhmm." She wiped her greasy hands on the hips of her coveralls. "Well, boys. Bring it over here and tell me what on earth I can do for you. Neither of you ride air-cooled, so I'm guessing it's safe to say you're not here for an oil change."

The men shuffled in, looking a little out of place in their black slacks and slim ties under wool coats. Nappa, to her amusement, had to duck under a hanging fluorescent bulb before sitting his pack of beer beside her cash register with a crash.

"So you really work here?" Raditz took in the garage scenery with interest.

Bulma stared at him with evident disbelief. "Yes. I do, indeed, work here."

"I didn't mean it like that. Jeez, go on a witch hunt why don't you." He tossed his hair over his shoulder. "It's just...It's hard to imagine you, you know...doing this all day."

"What, turning wrenches?" She smiled smugly. "Doing men's work?"

Raditz shook his head forcefully. "No," he said defensively. "I mean, I don't know how to do this stuff. Do you?" He asked Nappa. Nappa shook his head. "I mean, I couldn't tell you the difference between a, a Ford and a Honda. What the fuck's a Honda, anyway."

Bulma tried to restrain a smile.

"Vegeta's really into this stuff, but he's a private kinda guy."

"I don't think he wants us to help him, honestly. He'd probably just flip his lid the first time we handed him a, a hammer instead of a nail or something, and kick us out of his house." Nappa nodded down at the floor in agreement.

Bulma's face stretched with contained laughter, which she tried her best to control.

"Yeah, remember that one time our tire blew out?" Nappa asked Raditz, who rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. How could I forget." He turned to Bulma with a huff. "One time we were on the highway, right? And our tire blew out. We call Vegeta, right? We don't know how the fuck to get this tire back on. We don't know that we pay for a fucking tow truck with our car insurance. So we call Vegeta. The only guy we know who knows the difference between a tire and a wheel. And that fucker…." Raditz started shaking his head with frustration. "Vegeta tells me…." He glances at Nappa, and then back at Bulma before lowering his voice. "Pardon my French, but he tells me to ‘stick my dick in it.’"

Bulma's eyes bugged out a little.

"And me, I...oh god, I'm such an idiot...I trust Vegeta. So what do I do?"

"You stuck your dick in it," Bulma asked flatly.

"How was I to know that wasn't going to do anything?" He roared, looking at Nappa for confirmation.

"So, anyway." He shrugged. "It ain't about it being man's territory. It's just hard to see you as a business lady type, you know."

"This conversation can't possibly go on any longer without a beer," she uttered.

"I agree," Nappa agreed.

* * *

And that's how, Bulma reasoned to herself, they wound up falling out of the front door of the Irish Ale House in West City Square, Nappa turning and nearly knocking them all over to scream back at a bar patron, who was threatening them with a lawsuit.

"How in the hell," Bulma slurred, straightening, "can two attorneys cause so much hell?"

"We're just two lucky sons a bitches," Raditz explained, throwing his arm over her and Nappa's shoulders before patting them on the back, pushing them towards the heart of the bar district.

"To Bazookas!" Nappa bellowed, stopping a few pedestrians in their tracks and causing a few others to scurry away.

"Not to Bazookas," Bulma opposed. "God, you two really are as sleazy and vile as I could have imagined."

"There's a good pizza place up ahead." Raditz pointed erratically in front of them. "Go that way."

"Ugh, not pizza," Nappa whined. "I don't wanna sober up yet."

As they neared the small pizza joint, the booming bass of live music began its unsettling cohabitation in their chests, and Bulma grabbed the men's wrists and pulled them towards it.

"Music. Pizza. More beer." She reassured them.

The three of them dove through the growing crowd and pushed toward the front, where a handful of men on a small stage belted out hard rock with shameless joy.

"What is this stuff this is loud and all I hear is yelling," Raditz yelled in her ear uncertainly.

"It's rock and roll." She laughed.

"I don't like it," he declared.

"I think Nappa does." She pointed above their heads, where Nappa's hulking form was trying, unsuccessfully, to crowd surf.

"This is for the birds. I prefer R&B. Let's go get more drunk," he insisted, before pulling her through the crowd and toward the closest bar.

"Raditz," she quipped, lingering a little too long on the 'z' and tugging at his coat hem. "Why did you come over. Why did you invite me out. We don't even get along."

"Yeah, well." He shrugged, talking over his shoulder. "I just, I got to thinking, you know, who is this chump that Vegeta gave up representing the Freeman case for? She must be a real prick. Nappa and I just wanted to share our condolences. For fielding Vegeta's interests. That must be tough. If Vegeta's interested in a woman," he hiccuped, before crashing in through the bar door, "he's firing her for not filing his papers right."

"I don't know what to say," Bulma finished lamely, following him, emotion swirling in her gut. The bar hoppers parted easily for his tall, beefy form.

"Say your prayers," Raditz informed her before slamming his fist down on the bar and screaming for a pitcher of their cheapest stuff.

* * *

"Ohhhhh my god." Raditz head hung low, his nose brushing the table. "Oh god." The phone was ringing, but he'd forgotten that he'd dialed out. Sleep was pressing upon him, and the only thing that startled him from passing out with the weight of it was the rough voice on the other end.

"Hello?" Raditz asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, I said that, several times now. What do you want."

"I need...I need a favor." Raditz listed sideways, bumping into Bulma, who snored lightly in protest.

"I'm not doing it."

"Whaaaaat. Why. This...this isn't even like the time our tire blew out."

"What?" Vegeta seemed to have honestly not understood a word that had fallen out of his co-worker's mouth.

"Why won't you," he re-asked, this time slowly.

"I'm already in bed, watching the damned weather forecast."

"You old man," Raditz accused him resentfully. "Get off your lazy ass and come get us."

Raditz was pretty sure he could hear Vegeta chewing calmly, but he was in a pizza place, the last time he remembered, so it could have just been someone nearby chewing their pizza. Or a nearby squirrel, nomming on an acorn...or something.

"Come...on. Come get us. We need you," he implored him. His eyes drifted out the window, leading his head to bang hollowly against the store front glass. There, on the sidewalk, lay Nappa, his lower half hanging out into the gutter. Bar crawlers walked over him nonchalantly.

"What's new."

"Raditz," murmured Bulma, who was slouching further and further down in her seat. "Where's my pizza."

"Idunno," he slurred. "I thought you ate it."

Vegeta's voice became sharp. "Who was that?”

“It’s”—he hiccuped—“It's B-Bulma, who else would it be, you fuck." Raditz had listed sideways in the booth, slowly pushing Bulma, unaware, out of her seat.

"Where are you?"

"Stupid pizza place."

"Where the fuck are you, Raditz?"

"I don't know, why do you always yell at me," he cried out. "Stupid...West City Square, or something."

"I'll be there in a few."

The line went dead, but Raditz managed to hurl a few more insults in Vegeta's direction before passing back out against the window.

* * *

She was being lifted from sleep, and all she could do was moan in protest. Everything was dark, like she couldn't open her eyes, but she could hear the press of shoes in grass, feel herself jostled lightly, rhythmically, and feel a dull stabbing in her abdomen.

She was being carried.

The swish of shoes in long grass ended, the crackle of shoes drug on asphalt began, and a warm breeze suddenly wrapped itself around her face, waking her up fractionally.

"Spring," she sighed, against the cool, rough texture of denim butt in her face, "when the world is mud, luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee."

"What in the fuck are you talking about, Briefs," she heard a familiar voice question her waspishly, and she tried to look up and find the origins of the voice when she was spilled out onto a couch, heels dragging on carpet.

"I do believe she is reciting poetry," came a voice that fell deep into her gut and stayed there, heavy and anxious.

"No one asked you, you weenie," she tried scolding the voice, and Raditz burst into giggles somewhere beside her.

"Wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world," she accosted him with her foot.

"Whatever you nerd," Raditz mumbled into the carpet.

"Is someone going to tell me how in the hell you three got like this?"

"Ouch. Your boots hurt," Raditz complained. She continued kicking him half heartedly and blind.

"Somebody better damn well tell me how you got in this condition before I have to pry it out of you!" Vegeta roared with impatience.

"If I cared, I'd tell him how cute he is when he gets mad," Bulma confided to Raditz, and they snickered into the carpet.

"Nappa is out there in my car, where he's going to stay. I'm not lugging him in. I'm going to bed. Do either of you need anything? A wastebasket? A bucket?"

"Relax. No one's going to puke on your carpet. We're not lightweights, here," Raditz chided him, and Bulma chortled.

A deep sigh rolled through the room.

"Alright. I'm going to bed." There was a pause, which Bulma, crashing into sleep again as she was, could only momentarily feel was pregnant with uncertainty.

"Goodnight," the voice said.

"Goodnight," she answered back.

* * *

When Bulma awoke and glanced around a home she hadn't seen in months, logically she understood that it could only be a dream. Tactilely, however...the too smooth slip of microfiber under her face...the smell of cotton, and spice, and dark roasted coffee...the way she kept resurfacing from sleep like the unstoppable ascent to the surface of a pool after diving in...

She was at Vegeta's.

She sat up quickly, but just as quickly regretted it when the world started spinning.

"I'm going to hurl," she said to no one, and then realized as she glanced around that there was no one around to hear her.

Bulma made her way delicately, oh so slow and laboriously, towards the kitchen, where the smell of coffee got stronger.

In a river of shit, it seemed that she was at least to get a paddle.

She fumbled around the cabinets until she found the coffee mugs. Absently, she realized that she didn't know where they were because she'd never gotten the chance to wake up here. Bulma grabbed a thermos unapologetically with the firm intent to pilfer it.

Filling it up to the brim, she capped it and made her way carefully through the condo, hoping that if anyone was there, she'd be able to avoid them with her skillful, ninja-like silence.

The front door was unlocked, and she opened it, cringing at the noise as it sucked, protesting, against the door jamb before opening. She shut it behind her with relief.

Feeling queasy, she made her way gingerly down the stairs until she came to the last one, and, looking up and out at the empty parking lot, realized how much of a mistake she had made.

How was she going to get home?

She heard footsteps knocking on the solid wood behind her, and an irritated voice that she had an embarrassing hard time identifying snap, "Really, did you not even notice the coffee pot was still on?"

She turned slowly in order to keep the contents of her stomach down, and met Bardock's unforgiving gaze.

"I can walk," she contested weakly.

"I'll drive," he growled, grabbing keys out of his pocket with a jingle, and stalked past her.

A car beeped as it was signaled to unlock, and she followed him into Vegeta's carport, where a powder blue Stingray awaited them.

"Niiice." Bulma raked her gaze over the car with a small smile. "72?"

"What do you care," he grumbled. "Don't you only drive Reich mobiles?"

Bulma plopped down in the convertible and buckled up, disregarding her roiling stomach stubbornly. "Ah," she murmured with dripping sarcasm, smiling at Bardock's glum face. "I see you are an American muscle kind of man."

"Hmph." He pulled out of the carport in one swift movement, the long front end of the Corvette swinging the opposite direction with the sudden force of it, and Bulma's stomach threatened to make an appearance.

"You know," she mused, gagging down acid, "so far, I like your sons a lot better than I like you."

Bardock only stomped his foot on the gas.

* * *

"No, Mom," Bulma said once more into the phone at her shop, it's old school coiled wall cord getting on her nerves as she paced around the register, phone pinned between her crooked head and shoulder.

"Because I told you, you're welcome to come by for tea," her mother tittered.

"Thank you again, Mom, but no. I'm too busy today. I've got some things left to finish up at the shop, and then I will be there for dinner. I'm shooting for 7." Bulma took a look at her watch.

"Okay, well, honey, don't forget to eat lunch. I made you peanut butter and banana sandwiches. They're in your cooler. Have a wonderful day, dear!"

"Talk to you soon," Bulma rushed, and hung up the phone in record time.

The shop door swung open, and her tow truck guy's grizzled face peeked in. "I've got another Caddy waiting for you on the truck."

"Well, darn," Bulma murmured before making her way around the counter to follow Tom out the door. "That's the second one this week." She shielded her eyes from the summer sun with her hand and looked over the truck that hung limply from the tow chain. "Poor thing. Alright, lets get her off."

Tom was already unbelting the tires from the ramp and moving to lower it to the ground, when Bulma's foot scuffed something other than gravel, its papery protest causing her to glance down at the ground in dull curiosity.

Thoughtlessly, compelled by something other than logic, she bent down to pick it up.

Vegeta's card.

It was sun bleached, and weathered, the ink worn to a sorry looking gray. It had been dyed brown with spring rain and dirt, and tattered from who knew how many times she or someone had stepped on it or driven over it.

Bulma flipped the card over.

_I'm sorry._

Distantly, she heard her tow truck guy yelling at her about where to put the old truck, and she directed him to the east side of her small lot, where a few other cars awaited her tender love and care.

She looked back down at the card before waving goodbye distractedly at Tom, who was already taking off to another client, and who she'd surely see again this week.

Bulma crumpled the card into her hand, letting the softened paper stroke her palm, before, on a whim, tucking the card into her pocket for safekeeping.

* * *

There were two people she could call, and Bulma was having a difficult time deciding who to shake down first. She had tried eeny meeny miny moe, but afterward hadn't felt like it was truly settled. She'd rolled dice and made a pros and cons list for it twice. When her mother bustled in with an armful of laundry, she'd jumped up and opened the laundry room door for her and asked, "Mom, one or two. You can only pick one. Alright go!" Her mother had bent over the pile, separating lights from darks, with a look of deep thought. "Well, I don't know. Two? No, no, what about one?"

Bulma sighed. "Nevermind, Mom." There was no easy answer, and either had its fair share of risk and possibility.

In the end, she felt she made the best informed decision she could possibly make. She held her cell phone in hand, elbow resting on the kitchen table, and stared at the name on the screen. Her thumb hovered over the name, and she made a face before hitting dial.

"I'm sitting here watching porn and who do I get a call from but none other than Bulma Briefs. If this isn't a proposition for a roll in the hay, I don't want to hear it."

Bulma sighed.

"Raditz, we need to talk."

"If you're pregnant, it's not mine. I'm just going to say that right now."

"Raditz, damnet, meet me at Romeo's. For Kami's sake, I'll buy you a beer," she yelled at him in frustration.

"Just one beer?"

"If you're asking me to bribe you...Well, fine. I accept. I'll buy you as much beer as your pretty gut can handle...on one condition. You tell me what I want to know."

"Uh oh."

"Yep. This is real talk."

He emitted something between a sigh and a hiss of frustration. "Okay. Fine. I'll be there in an hour. I've gotta finish this movie."

"The sad part is I know you're not even joking. Wash your damn hands before you leave!" She yelled in the receiver before hanging up.

"Oh my, Bulma, who are you meeting that doesn't practice good hygiene?"

She looked up at her mother, who was opening the fridge to pour herself a small glass of iced tea before bed and regarding her with worry.

"Oh, Mom. Just a friend." She sighed before pocketing the phone.

"A manly friend?" Bunny's eyebrows jumped suggestively.

"No. Nooooooooooo. Not at all. I need to take a shower, just with the vileness of your suggestion. I'm...actually going to ask him about a guy I might like." She nearly choked on the words.

"OooOooh." Her mother's eyes widened as she sipped her tea. "Is he handsome?"

"Too handsome," Bulma griped darkly. "Don't get too excited, Mom. I can't imagine how this is possibly going to end well." She stood.

"Well, good luck, hun!"

"Thanks, Mom. I'm going to need it even contemplating what I'm about to do.”

* * *

Bulma's eyes drifted over the shots lined in front of her before shaking her head fearfully.

"No way. I said beer. Not...a repeat of last month."

Raditz snorted before downing the contents of one glass.

"My father's still pissed at you for puking in his car."

Bulma bristled. "He knew better than to drive like he was qualifying. That's on him."

"Yeah, well. What do you want to talk about. I'm getting properly liquored up to answer your questions and I don't know how much longer I'll be coherent enough to answer them."

"I need to know everything you know about what Vegeta was up to when we were...seeing each other."

Raditz spit out the contents of his third shot.

"That's what you wanted to talk about?" He choked out.

"What on Kami's green earth did you think I wanted to talk to you about?"

"What do you want me to say," he griped.

"I want to know...I want to know…." She took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. Something came together inside her, pieces previously lost, and it bolstered her enough to say what she'd come to say. "I want to know if he has feelings for me."

"Why don't you just ask him yourself." Raditz pouted, before sending the bartender a flirtatious wink.

"Because he won't tell me the truth," she argued. "Because I don't want to even talk to him unless I know what he was all about!" Bulma's frustration was quickly condensing into a stormy rage. "I can't ask Goku because then I'll feel bad for not having talked to Chi Chi in three months. I can't ask Nappa because he has the IQ of a rock. I can't ask anybody because nobody really knew about us. Except you." Raditz's eyes grew wide as he drank from his fourth shot. "You obviously knew, because you and Nappa came over for a pity party the week after the hearing. You guys were there when he clobbered Yamcha. You had to have known."

"Hey, hey, let's not jump to conclusions." Raditz held up his hands defensively.

"Quit dissembling and start talking! I've already bribed you with tequila." She snapped.

"Okay. Jeez, you're as bad as Vegeta." Raditz crossed his legs and assumed a look of moody surrender that she accurately guessed he put on when he had to deal with clients. "I mean, it's not like the guy confided his feelings in me or anything. It's not like we had a heart to heart, talking about our crushes at a sleepover—"

"Shut up and tell me what you know."

"Look." Raditz placed his finger on the table commandingly and leaned forward. "This is all I know. Vegeta was representing the Freeman case. Vegeta likes these big cases because they stroke his ego, and my dad and his dad like to give them to him because he's a kiss ass. Not really." He waved his hands in the air dismissively. "He's just really good at being a dick, and he is perceptive of the small details and all that jazz, and the guy's a good lawyer, so he gets the good cases. Everyone and their moms know that Vegeta is being groomed to take over the business, but he's gotta prove himself cuz his dad is a bigger dick than he is. So, the Freeman case was his chance to get out from his father. You following me?"

Bulma nodded attentively.

"So he takes this case, and everyone's happy cuz everything that asshole touches turns to gold. But then there's this wrench in the whole plan. The case stalls. The prosecution suddenly has all this juicy stuff on Freeman and his involvement with the mayor, and investors, and sexy interns, and stuff. We're all wondering, where the fuck did this come from? How do we dismiss this shit as irrelevant to the case? Someone put a lid on it already. So Vejita Sr. told him to get out there and put a stop to it."

Bulma sipped her Pepsi tensely while Raditz ordered a beer to wash down the tequila, sipping it slowly once the waitress sat it down in front of him.

"Vegeta's real stressed, right? He's got this huge case that he thought he had in the bag and his dad is really riding him about it. In my opinion, his dad is a real dick. Not in the likable way that Vegeta kind of is, but like, the kind of hard ass that clearly has expectations for Vegeta that even he can't fulfill. So Vegeta goes out with us every now and then. We all grew up together, and he might not want to admit it, but he likes us." Raditz placed his hand over his heart and smiled sweetly. "He thinks I'm kind of cute, too." Bulma snorted. "So we're like, c'mon asshole, let's go get crunk, and he's like ugh fine, and so we go out for a drink. Goku's like," Raditz voice reached its highest registers, "'I'm going to bring my girlfriend,' and we're like fine whatever."

"Wait, why did you make Goku's voice girly?" Bulma said through her fingers, hiding her smile.

"Because he's my kid brother, I don't know. Regardless. Goku tells us, by the way, Chi Chi wants Vegeta to know, she's bringing this girl you might be into. Vegeta's like, nah son, and I'm like I'll take her, but when I found out it was you I was like fuck no so we ended up playing rock paper scissors for it."

"WHAT?"

Raditz looked around nervously. "Jeez, calm down. Vegeta lost, so I don't know what you're complaining about."

"Are you saying you played rock paper scissors to get out of a date with me?"

Bulma felt herself rise to choke him.

"Calm down, Briefs! Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Just hurry up," she snarled.

"Alright, alright." Raditz put up his hands placatingly and resettled in his chair. "Anyway. We all know what happens when you get there. You and Vegeta start fighting, and then you guys get stuck on the fire escape—hilarious, by the way—and then I don't see Vegeta until the following Monday."

He stopped dramatically, sipping his beer theatrically and narrowing his eyes at her. "I think we all know what happened that weekend."

Bulma blushed scarlet.

"Continue," she encouraged weakly.

"Well, I can't say why he bumped uglies with you, Briefs. I don't understand the guy sometimes. But I know he doesn't sleep with just anyone. He's one of those super weird doesn't-like-people, so doesn't-have-the-patience-for-women kind of guys, and so, do I think he slept with you to get you to confess your ties to the prosecution? Maybe. I don't know. He was between a rock and a hard place. Vegeta likes above all to be the best, and if faced with something that goes against his values, well, he may just take it so he can laud it over our heads. I don't know."

Bulma felt a sinking feeling in her gut, and she looked down at her hands, clasped together on the table top.

"Hey, hey," Raditz said with surprising concern. "Don't look like that." He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed at her with something akin to empathy. "If someone had asked me if Vegeta would ever be interested in a woman beyond getting his rocks off—and even then, the man is unrealistically picky—I would have laughed in their face and told them Vegeta's best friend is always going to be his hand. But, now that I know you two had a thing….I guess I can see it." He took a big gulp of his beer and stared at her questioningly. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

"I also want to know why he didn't show up that day at the hearing," she said, clearing her throat to avoid her voice breaking with stamped down emotion.

"Well." Raditz gazed at the wall with his chin on his fist thoughtfully. "He's never come right out and said it, but we all know. Shortly after he met you, we all got that memo. Cull Bulma Briefs at all costs. Vegeta had a lot at stake. He might have been considering it. I don't know. Did you guys ever talk about the case?"

"No," she replied quietly. "Not really. He tried to talk to me about it the second night we went out together, but it didn't last very long." Her cheeks pinkened, and Raditz understood what had gotten in the way of the discussion.

"So he never pried you for information? Beyond prying apart your legs." He snickered.

"No," she attested, eyes wide. "And shut up."

"Well, then."

"But how do I know he didn't have a file on me or something? Sniffing out my, my weaknesses or connections, or something? He wouldn't have just asked me straight what my part was in the case."

"Vegeta is not a spy, Briefs. He's way too forward to be sneaky. Even if he were trying to be, he couldn't help but give himself away by bragging about how he was fooling you." He snorted over his glass. "He can't lie to save his own ass. It's against his moral code, or something. That's why I have a hard time believing he would have been trying to fuck you over, for as ridiculous as it is to think of him having feelings for a woman. Vegeta's not very easy to get along with, so, if you can get along with him, by all means, go for it."

"But none of this answers anything," she argued.

"What more do you want? You asked me for my opinion. I'm not a Vegeta expert, or something. Woah, I think I'm getting a little tipsy." He blinked his eyes.

She sighed.

"Why wouldn't he show up after all that work to win the case?" She asked herself softly, her brows knit with delicate worry.

"You know what I think?" Raditz leaned forward conspiratorially, sliding his hand towards the middle of the table. "I think he knew he'd lost you either way. I don't think he was trying to win you back by giving up the case and his promotion. I think," his voice dipped into a speedy whisper, "he knew he sucked at talking about what he felt, and he knew at that point you didn't want to hear about it. So he said sorry the only way he knew how. My man is real like that." Raditz's eyes got a bit crazy as he took another shot. "And I think he was trying to make a statement to his dad. Yeah, I'm on a roll here! I think that he was saying, 'Dad, fuck off. I like this woman. So fuck your greed.' It was like Vegeta finally stood up to him. Even though he knew it wasn't going to make a difference. I mean, he got the memo after he had slept with you. And he never went through with shaking you down or finalizing the case. If that's not liking a woman, I don't know what is. It's disgusting."

Bulma's eyes filled, and she looked the other way. "Yeah, you're a veritable Sherlock Holmes. I just don't understand how I can care so much about what he thinks about me. I barely know him. We rolled around underneath each other for a month, and that's it."

Raditz shrugged.

"Who the fuck knows. Love is stupid. It's not smart. Who really knows what's going on in those mixed up heads and hearts of yours. I don't care, honestly. Why don't you just go make up with him and get it over with." He downed his last shot. "Are we done here? I think I've had about enough of talking about feelings for this century."

Bulma called the bartender over and ordered a dozen shots. "Raditz, call Nappa and tell him to pick us up in an hour," she demanded. "I don't know if you've given me heartache or hope, but damnet, we're going to toast to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should be titled "Bulma and Raditz Shenanigans." Well, if there was ever an opportunity to turn Raditz into a loveable sleazebag, I guess I've taken it. It's utterly ridiculous and a blemish on the hard won reputations of all serious novelists.


	10. Chapter 10

She couldn't believe she was doing this.

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this," she groaned, sucking in her stomach so she could button the tight pants. Once the button slid into home, she whipped around to scrutinize her butt in the mirror. Shifting her hips back and forth dramatically to get the full effect, Bulma stared over her shoulder into the mirror with her sexiest, sultriest, most contrived expression, before making a face.

She sighed wistfully and turned to stare down at her bed, where a row of shirts lay intimidatingly.

She could hear Chi Chi's voice, lecturing her. _"Not too low cut, you'll be falling out with those melons you call your breasts. You want to tease him without seeming provocative." "So you want me to look like Margaret Thatcher." "No one said that. Just...for Kami's sakes, Bulma, you look great in pastels. Put on the coral blouse over your black bra, for a flirty look." "But isn't flirty just a synonym for provocative?" "For Kami's sakes Bulma put on the coral blouse!"_

She chose the coral blouse.

She tucked it neatly into the waistband of her jeans with a lot of straining on her part, form fitting as they were, knowing full well Chi Chi would be laughing at her for not just unbuttoning the damn things. She frowned stubbornly at the thought of it, cursing under her breath. She hadn't spent ten minutes getting into them to turn back now.

The ruffles at the neck lay modestly below her collar bone, making their way down the shirt yoke to taper off above the button of her jeans at her waistline. The sheer thing was fashionable, it was sophisticated, and it was feminine, and Bulma thought that it better damn well be for as embarrassed as she felt purchasing it. She'd mashed her lips together as she'd sat it beside the register, to keep from spilling a deluge of complaints and criticisms about the mental costs of entering the world of women's fashion to the innocent and unsuspecting cashier.

It's not that she hadn't been gussied up before; there was a point where she and Chi Chi, Launch and Juu slunk out every weekend night in their shortest skirts and highest volumes of mascara to tease their peers at the university bar. Her current failure at being a femme fatale was just evidence of the toll that time takes from a woman who dove into shapeless clothing and boxed dinners to escape some big questions for too long. And who knows, maybe it was all compounded by the radical heights of her stubbornness as well.

What could she say? Her self esteem had taken a nose dive after the honeymoon period of her relationship with Yamcha. He shifted from someone so easygoing and loveable to someone so unappeasable, and eventually, she became dissatisfied with who she'd become for him. Once they'd split, she'd turned a bit of a new and more sloppy leaf, and she felt like the new, more careless identity agreed with her. She'd crashed at Chi Chi's and, with her best friend's support, never looked back.

Mulling over it made her recognize that, at one point, she'd relied on Chi Chi for everything. It was no surprise that Chi Chi had taken the role of mother and mentor, that she'd just assumed meddling in Bulma's life was much more helpful than it was criminal, and the thought made her sad. She had just as much self questioning to do as Chi Chi did.

But here she stood, alone in her old bedroom at her parents compound, with only her own judgment to call on. She didn't want to check out her transformation in the mirror. She didn't want to see her stupid, awkward body staring back at her unapologetically, like the matted, slobbery thing at the shelter nobody wanted but wouldn't come right out and say. She knew her chest was too large, causing her to look wide. Her thighs and arms were too thick with all of the heavy lifting she did at the shop, making the tight pants and sleeveless top feel like a fashion faux pas. Albeit flat and narrow, her belly was soft around the middle, probably thicker than it could be. She was no bony, long swimsuit model, that was for sure, no willowy and graceful Chi Chi, and definitely no overconfident teenager anymore. She wasn't sure if there was any room in the definition of beauty for her, as a headstrong mechanic whose liberal excesses were junk food and isolation, and she couldn't imagine why someone as discriminating as Vegeta would have been attracted to her in the first place.

But there were some things she just couldn't change about herself, and reaching her 30th birthday recently had put that into perspective. She liked cars—and what she meant by that is she didn't just like men who drove nice cars, or like sprawling with her legs splayed for someone to snap a high-res photo of her on someone else's car. She liked ripping them apart. She liked the weight of an old bolt in her hand, the soapy battle to cut through the grease on her hands after a long day. The distinctive smell of old leather, the shoddy song of an air-cooled engine turning over, the deep clang of a real steel car door shutting. After a long adolescence under her father's thumb, hovering over blueprints for conceptual projects with astronomical price tags, it was now one of her deepest pleasures to be able to take apart her old bus's simple engine and put it back together in under sixty minutes. They were small things, these things that made her her—things that she understood deep down that she really didn't want to change about herself, things that were shallow and frankly silly in the profound scope of things, like her disorderly hair, or things that were really for other people's capricious pleasures, like her waistline or how simpering she could be.

However, there were some things that she could at least tidy up before she put herself out there for another shot with Vegeta.

She'd plucked her eyebrows into what she hoped were svelte arches; she'd shaved her pits and bikini line and clumsily trimmed her pubes; she'd even gotten a haircut, taming the unruly curls into a shorter, chic 'do from a decent stylist.

All that was left was to turn her pasty, colorless mug into art. She chewed her lip and turned to call for her mom's help, but stopped herself, lips parted. She needed to do this on her own.

With trembling hands, she picked up the bold red lipstick and stared herself down in the mirror beside her bed. She wasn't familiar with lipstick, but she was familiar with lip balm—there had to be similarities, right? How had Chi Chi encouraged her to do it? Bulma made a grimace, flattening her lips and pulling them across her face in an unattractive death's moue that she assured herself would lead to more attractive prospects. Smoothly, she drew the lipstick across her lips.

She was careful not to cake the foundation on, and was stupidly proud of herself for putting the blush in its right spot. Not too wide, not too thick.

Slowly, she pulled the thick, clumpy brush from the tube of mascara and stared at it.

She'd done this before. She could do it again.

She batted her eyelashes over the round brush until they were longer, fuller, and blacker, and hopefully smoldering, and then stood, stiff and gracelessly, regarding herself in the mirror.

She looked alright. She looked like...well, like herself. Adult, and self aware, and...strong. She didn't look like she was trying to prove something. Bulma felt relief settle in her gut, felt something surfacing from her mouth like laughter.

She grabbed for her oxblood leather jacket and shoved her feet into her riding boots.

She was taking the bike out tonight. It was early June, and warm as happiness, with a breeze as soft and reassuring as fingers through hair. Everywhere, there was room for new things, like hope, like stitching the fragmented pieces of her adult life together and then asking a guy out.

She padded down the stairs and made her way into her parent's kitchen, where her mother stood over flattened dough with a roller, preparing to cut the sweet stuff into sections, tiny rounded loaves of almond biscotti to indulge in tomorrow morning. Her mother, always busy as a bee, always pouring herself into domesticity with simple, unjaded pleasure. No one asked her to, no one expected her to, but here she stood where she always stood, her hair done, her cute A-line dress swinging around her knees, humming to herself.

She wrapped her arms around her mother's tiny waist and squeezed.

Bunny let out a little pleased huff and patted her daughters hands.

"Wish me luck, Mom."

"Go get him, tiger."

She inhaled the comforting, warm fragrance of her mother's perfume and smiled.

* * *

There were only two things in life Vegeta needed, beyond the basic requirements for survival: a challenge, and privacy.

Should one of those terms not be met, he could be found prowling, pacing, and snapping at anyone unabashedly like a caged animal. He didn't ask for much, but those two things were absolutes.

And for the most part, they were easily met. He was fiercely competitive in certain areas of his life, self-important, easily insulted. He didn't try to hide his low expectations of everyone around him, and consequently, they gave him a wide berth, aside from the bumbling of Raditz and Nappa, who were impervious to his disparaging.

He lived happily alone and in comfort inside a sleek condo which overlooked an impeccably manicured lawn. He was a homeowner, he was a shareholder, he was a doctorate holder, he was an established, envied attorney.

However, tonight, both of those conditions of his existence were egregiously non-existent.

He had nothing to do tonight, frankly. Nothing to do. Things sat in his apartment, unobserving, unjudging, undemanding; sophisticated, soulless decor to elevate his living space and impress guests. Suddenly, they held no appeal. His decor didn't connect with him. His lifestyle didn't interest him. Nothing interested him. No one interested him. His condo was impeccably clean, his sleek, modern furnishings tidy and mostly unused. Even his bed was neatly made, his marble and stainless steel kitchen winking with immaculateness—the only two areas of his house he really utilized. At one time, he took a lot of pleasure in furnishing and enhancing his personal space. Now it seemed an incredibly boring, pointless task. The furniture, the pictures, they'd all taken him to a height of removal from character and fun, and now he felt them contrived and cold. He resented them just for being made to do so. At one time, he was maddened with making his home a true representation of a calculating, sophisticated urban male. Someone he ought to be. Now the purpose seemed empty. Now it seemed beneath him. Now he was more or different than that person he ought to be. He paced around, muscles clenched, bristling.

There was the kitchen, and food, another pleasure of his, and yet, cooking for one tonight seemed irrational. And lonely. And it required a measure of feeling on his part, of pleasure and excitement and challenge, but all he had was resentful confusion.

And, lastly, the fact that had him boiling over: his cars required no extra care tonight. Not even an oil change, not even air in the tires. For some obscene reason, they didn't need him, and they were silent, finished. For some infuriating reason, finished was maddening him. If there was nothing to attend to or lift him up in his home, than he could always prowl out to his garage and enhance the already top tier performance of his sports cars. He yanked a few pounds of beef from the fridge and threw it on the counter with an almost shameful amount of frustration.

Immediately changing his mind, Vegeta stomped into his front room, where his gym awaited him near the elegant bay window. Free weights, a pull up bar, a mat. It was one of his small pleasures in life to clear his mind and challenge his body and mind with intense interval workouts and strength training. So he bent and hooked his legs under one of the barbells that sat silently beside the mat and burst into a flurry of sideways sit ups with all of the intensity of a man at the end of his rope.

Up, down, elbow to knee, and the familiar anaerobic burn coursing through his muscles. He shot up and grabbed the handles of the pull up bar and pulled his densely muscled body up easily. One, two, three, one hundred, and all of this nominal counting the only thing to occupy his mind, except that wasn't true, because back there, it lingered, the knowledge that he wasn't finding this completely thrilling. How many times had he done this before? It was a routine, and although he was someone who really relied on routine, who really found comfort in routine as A-type and controlling as he could be, the familiarity this time around seemed to alienate him, and the practice seemed juvenile.

Vegeta let himself fall to the floor where he caught himself easily on his toes and palmed his jaw, running his hand over his skin, where trace amounts of bristles were beginning their evening scourge.

He hadn't shaved today.

It should have shocked and repulsed him, but it didn't. He hadn't shaved today.

There was a fierce thirst for something growing in him, and Vegeta, having spent all this time working on very few things he found satisfying, was feeling angrily confused about why they could just suddenly not be enough. A part of him was alarmed and panicked. With single minded intensity, he'd burst though every hurdle life—his father, for example—had thrown at him since he could remember. He had been on a one-way, linear path upwards without ever straying. To feel disconnected from the Vegeta that put enormous amounts of energy into the straight and narrow for years and years was absurd. He wondered if he should bite the bullet and call a therapist. This kind of numb disconnect should alarm him. But for a reason he couldn't decipher, he was mostly just frustrated, like the answer was right under his nose and he was too stupid to figure it out.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of his carport outside, his fists clenched lightly. He didn't even care that sweat dampened his white shirt between his shoulder blades from his momentary flurry of exercise, that he could be seen by his neighbors in anything under the highest level of control. He stood in front of his Kami forsaken Ghia and hated it, with a burning, churning in his gut.

It was perfect and he hated it.

The early June evening was descending over West City and he hated it.

His condominium complex was quiet, well-landscaped, and he hated it.

He couldn't feel anything but anger and not pride at the conditions he'd worked so hard to put himself in, and he hated it.

And as if in answer, the sound of a loud, raw motor making its way through the complex rollicked up his spine, and he glanced up from where he stood, just inside the pool of streetlight above his carport. A motorcycle rounded the corner a few complexes over, and he felt a mild spark of interest upon recognizing that it was no normal motorcycle, but a bobber, an antique.

His eyes were glued, something pulling the bike and him together, connecting them integrally. He watched it near, and knew instinctually who it was, watched her pull up to his garage without blinking and, with one leg, kick off the motor and kick down the kick stand.

The figure threw her leg over the seat and stood. He couldn't see her face, hidden as it was behind a bubble helmet colored the same deep champagne and burgundy of her bike. The figure walked towards him slowly as she pulled the helmet from her head, and he couldn't control his gaze as it raked up her shapely legs before lingering on the spill of curls from under her helmet.

Bulma Briefs regarded him with a small smile.

Although his expression didn't change, something in his chest warmed him through.

She cradled her helmet under her arm. Her jacket was the same shade of burgundy as her helmet, but her lips were a racy red, a beckoning, teasing, powerful red that seemed fitting for the woman that prowled under the laid back exterior. She regarded him with honest, up-front blue eyes, with a mixture of uncertainty and resignation crossing her face, and he took a step towards her.

"Hey," she breathed.

He realized a moment later that he hadn't spoken. He tried to make a noise but couldn't.

"You ride?" He finally said. It felt stupid after he said it. Of course she did.

She nodded hesitantly.

"Honda CB550?"

She nodded more enthusiastically, and turned towards her bike. "I don't get a reason to ride it enough, honestly." She smiled, patting the seat.

"So you must have a reason now."

She blushed a little, embarrassed. He immediately regretting saying it, putting it out there so soon, everything that stood between them. The look of uncertainty on her face churned his gut. Inside him was growing need to make her fearless around him again. He suddenly, desperately wanted to see her biting back, he wanted to watch that unapologetic backbone straighten. But for the first time in his life, he wasn't really sure how to go about it. Plans failed him. Being...being enchanted by a woman, a woman he could respect and boast about….Men were schooled on what to chase and how to woo, but they weren't prepared for women who interested them, women who they felt a hard attraction to simply because of their character. Her red lipstick made him feel stripped bare because it was on her lips, and not someone else's. Her humble nature made him feel humbled without feeling humiliated or unrepresented, in a way he needed to feel divested, in a way that made him preen at her respect and attention.

He didn't know this Vegeta, but this Vegeta seemed to know who he was, to know just what he needed to do.

"I'm glad you showed up." A dark smirk rippled across his features.

Her eyes widened. "You are?"

"Yeah. I was just about to rip the Ghia apart."

Her face lit up even as she frowned. "Why?"

"Because I'm pissed off." He looked at the ground cooly, his voice free of emotion. "I'm bored."

She took another step in his direction, and looked around his garage, before making a face.

"Do you have the tools to take it apart?" She regarded the clean garage warily.

A cheshire grin creeped over his face, and her eyebrow rose as his eyes gleamed wickedly.

"No, but you do."

She snorted. "You want to use my garage to tear into this beauty?"

He was already palming the keys and shooing her back towards her bike. "You lead the way," he called as he descended into the drivers seat of the Ghia that he was suddenly overcome with butterflies to destroy.

She shuffled back uncertainly to her bike before tucking her head back into her helmet and starting up the engine with a raw, ripe roar.

_Well, the hard part's over,_ she thought.

* * *

The garage door opened with a shuttering racket, and the Ghia rolled in smoothly. Vegeta put it into park and opened the engine to a roar one more time before shutting it off.

The night was cool for June, but Bulma shrugged off her jacket and opened the other garage door to let the night in. She was already shoving the jack under the Ghia and tromping on it, and Vegeta was filling with something like desire watching her, prowling around behind her. He ran his hand over his jaw with a gruff sigh, and that's when he saw it: an old juke box, lit red and gold and illuminating the inside.

He drifted over and scanned the catalog, and he felt her near his side. She was giving him a guarded look that he couldn't decipher.

"Where did you pick this up?"

"I traded a camper for it. Guy had it on his trailer, wanted a rusted out Westfalia sitting on the lot." Her lips thinned a bit as she regarded him, the gold and red light bathing their faces. She was all gold skin, bright eyes, red lips, and he couldn't help but to want to kiss those lips into submission.

He chose a song, and her eyes widened a bit.

"I haven't listened to this stuff since college."

She smiled at him, a real one that reached her eyes, which sparkled with delight. "This is their best album."

"I disagree. Doolittle was their best album." His dark eyes were molten in the light.

She felt the tension between them in her gut, and her self-preservation cautioned her to sprint away from it.

She backed up and handed him the socket wrench as she walked backwards to the car. "So are we going to get this engine out of there or what?"

He watched her back away with a predator's interest.

She leaned over the engine bay and began working the bolts that held the engine to the car, before whipping around and glaring at him. "Hey, I'm not doing this alone, buddy."

It was stupid, stupid, stupid, but he was reeled towards her like a fish on a line, and before he knew it, he was cupping her jaw and smiling down at her and she was pressed up against him, that amazing, soft body of hers, the scent of her imprinting itself on him, and he placed his other hand on the small of her back, warm through the thin fabric, feeling her tense. "Can I kiss you," he heard himself say distantly, with need, and he tore away his eyes from her lips to see her watching him anxiously.

"Vegeta," she began, with a note of disapproval, and he growled.

"Bulma," he rumbled dangerously, his palm running along her back with a mind of its own.

"I...We need to talk about this first...Need to establish some rules...Talk about what happened..."

"I disagree."

"I won't do this with you again unless we do," she argued firmly.

"Then let me tell you what happened." He cupped her face and stared down at her. "I saw you that night months ago with Goku's woman. She wanted us to meet." His mouth got closer to her own. His breath was on her lips. "You were uppity and defiant and unashamed. You were the exact opposite of other women I've had the displeasure of dating. You didn't stroke my ego like you were supposed to. Instead, you soaked it in gasoline and lit it on fire." His lips brushed hers, feather light. "I detested it," he snarled, nipping her nose lightly. "You left in the loudest, most mortifying way possible. Chi Chi sent me to get you back. I refused. She made me. I do not tolerate those who don't show me respect, and time and time again, you've disrespected me. Or, rather, redefined what respect, and pride, means." His eyes narrowed even as his thumbs stroked her cheeks. "We wound up at your apartment," he continued, "where you were kind enough to offer me dry clothes and make fun of my hair," he protested roughly, before pressing his lips against her eyelids. "I answered a phone call from my secretary in the middle of an intimate moment and then accused you of making a big deal of it when you balked. I just wanted to kiss you rotten, I didn't know how to react to your criticism of my actions and still keep face, but you told me to get out. And when I left your apartment in front of Chi Chi and Goku that one morning, do you remember accusing me of making a big deal out of what was going on between us?" She nodded uncertainly. "It is a big deal," he reasoned against her lips, before pulling her top lip into his mouth possessively. "You wouldn't follow the rules. You wouldn't let me boss you around. I've never met anyone as infuriatingly subversive as you, and I've never wanted anyone more." His lips settled into the curve of her ear, and lightly, slowly, his tongue traced its contours. "You object to everything I do, and you enjoy the things about me that I didn't think mattered. They do matter," he attested roughly, looking into her eyes again darkly.

"Vegeta no’Ouji," she choked out weakly, "I...somehow...know exactly what you mean."

"Let me kiss you," he demanded gently, her face in his hands.

"Okay," she breathed without protest.

He kissed her.

Her lips melted into his as he pressed them against hers vehemently, and she clutched his face. If there was any way to kiss with molten, uninhibited pleasure, he was showing her how, pressed up against her as he was, mouth hungry, chests heaving against the other. He hadn't yet opened his mouth and she was already melting into a puddle into his hands; she gripped him harder.

"Tell me that you want me," he demanded into her mouth, one hand leaving her to snake around her waist and pin her against him possessively.

"I...I don't know."

It was crazy, given how she'd already turned it over for days, whether or not she should approach him again, whether or not they could even have something that was even close to a normal relationship. It had seemed like, in retrospect, that the only thing they were any good at was intensity, and she knew from experience that a relationship needed more than just intensity. It needed understanding, and patience, and no inhibitions to breathe easily. She wasn't sure even now if he was capable of that, if even she was capable of patience, of dealing with his own intensity, his sharp tongue, his cruel defensiveness that lashed out immediately with steep consequences. Was she strong enough for that? Was he able to relax enough to enjoy her, to do the things normal couples did, like go out to eat, like greet each other's friends? She wasn't sure how any of that could really work between them.

"Let me prove it to you," and his mouth opened against hers, and his delicious tongue was in her mouth, his nails against her neck, and she sighed into his mouth. Her hands were against his pecs, wide and jutting outward from his chest, and they made their way down without any thought to where his dense waist curved towards his spine. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her in close, and pressed his mouth against her hard. She opened her own wide, wanting to take him all in. "I've never met anyone like you," he told her haltingly as his mouth ransacked her own, "I've never been so uncertain I should see someone ever again, for fear of who you turn me into," he explained against her neck, his mouth making her arch backwards in sharp desire of it, "I've never met a woman I've been interested in, who sets me on fire like you do, who leaves questions unanswered like you do." His mouth was filling the dip of her collar bone, and she felt a growing answer in her lower abdomen, settling in the juncture of her thighs. His hands were around her waist, and they were burning into her.

Her small hands roved around his strong, thick neck, the curve of his shoulders and the top of his chest revealed by the neck of his shirt which she just found so delicious. She couldn't help it and drew him in against her, wrapped her tongue around his hungrily, wildly.

His hand, sensing her mood, tugged her shirt from the back of her jeans that she'd worked so hard on tucking. It shot up inside and pressed against the bare small of her back before running up her spine, and she felt herself boil as his fingers grazed the clip of her bra.

She wanted his hands everywhere, everywhere politely mannered hands weren't supposed to be. She wanted him to grip her breasts, she wanted him to acknowledge the pressure that was growing between her legs. She moaned into his mouth and tugged his shirt up, up over the ridge of his abdomen, and he helped her, pressing her against him with one hand as the other grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head, his hair quickly resettling from the constraint of the t-shirt neck into its upwards flame. She gripped his arms, hard mounds of muscle, hot and bare.

He swept her from the back of the car to press her against the Ghia's door, which was probably for the best, as weak-kneed as she was becoming. She ran her fingers over his hard nipples, the thrill of them against her palms, which earned her lips a little nip. He sucked her tongue into her mouth and chuckled as she lost her footing a little bit.

She released him and began fumbling with the buttons of her shirt. He understood where she was going and responded by making it as hard as possible for her by running his hands over her breasts and squeezing them gently.

He moved to rip her shirt open but she cried out. "No, don't rip it! I just bought the stupid thing."

He cast her a dark glower and ripped the yoke open, spraying buttons. "Don't tell me what to do."

"Oh, no you didn't," she reprimanded him impetuously. He showed her he did by cupping her breasts in his hands, spilling out from his fingers, and staring her down.

Pressing her mouth roughly against his, Bulma wrapped her arms around his neck and arched her stomach into his, the bare heat of his skin driving her wild. She disengaged from the kiss for a moment to rub her cheek possessively against his, kissing down his jaw and then up, up into his mouth, before she unhooked her bra and tore off what remained of her top.

His hands were lightning quick and already cupping her bare breasts, which spilled into his hands, soft and aching. His wet mouth made its way down her neck, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, wanting him closer, wanting to feel his need for her.

Finally his descending mouth made it to her pale pink nipples, and he held one captive between his teeth, and it hardened painfully in his mouth, earning a small strangled cry from her above him.

"Do you want me?" He asked her perilously. Daring her to say no.

She fingered the waist of his pants and intercepted him with her own question. "Do you want me?"

Distantly, behind from the roar of his desire, he understood the weight of the question. Will you run away from me again? Will you be embarrassed of me? ...Will you stay?

"Yes, I want you," he replied throatily, sinking his hands into her hair and pressing her against the hard evidence below his waist. "You bet your ass I do."

As Vegeta set her carefully onto the hood of her car, where he peeled her pants from her legs and she laughed at his struggle to get the constraining things off, the pair melded into the gold and red glow of the juke box, softly emitting its tinny rock music, the dim incandescents from the shop lights bathing their bare skin in warm light as he began to slowly move against her, inside her, their foreheads pressed against the other's as they gazed at one another in understanding.

The Ghia rocked lightly to the rhythm of their hips and a balmy breeze drifted throughout the shop and through the car parked on the curb outside the shop, where two grown men sat huddled, sharing a pair of binoculars.

"Oh my god, I should be recording this," the one with long, thick hair cursed, sliding down deeper into his seat covertly while pressing the binoculars against the window.

"Roll down the window, Nappa, and hand me the bag of chips," he demanded, "before I steam it up."

"Are they doing it?"

"What do you think, asshole?"

Raditz popped a handful of chips into his mouth and smiled with smug satisfaction. "We did it, Nappa. We finally brought them together."

He heard Nappa snort from up front and resettle his hulking form into the too-small drivers seat, the car jerking left and right with the weight of him.

"Can we please go to Bazookas after this?”


	11. Chapter 11

Whether it was the summer heat making her dog tired, or the long hours at the shop driving her completely nutty, she knew, without a doubt, that Goku had talked her into the impossible. She let out a heavy sigh as she stared out over the car lot and into the late summer sunset, the sun perched atop the shimmering skyline to sink like a marble into molasses atop the horizon. She didn't know whether to be offended or flattered that Goku would request her help with something like this. She was feeling something like bile in the back of her t

Whether it was the summer heat making her dog tired, or the long hours at the shop driving her completely nutty, she knew, without a doubt, that Goku had talked her into the impossible.

She let out a heavy sigh as she stared out over the car lot and into the late summer sunset, the sun perched atop the shimmering skyline to sink like a marble into molasses atop the horizon.

She didn't know whether to be offended or flattered that Goku would request her help with something like this. She was feeling something like bile in the back of her throat, mixed with a bolstering pride. Something...like...an agreement….

"Yes," she conceded, grimacing. "Yes. Fine. I'll do it. I surrender! Though you had to twist my arm to do it."

Goku pumped his fist and jumped for joy, causing Bulma to cringe reflexively as his six foot 200 lb-something frame landed beside her. The sun's ombre oranges lit his hair and cast its fiery monochrome over his features as the early Wednesday evening put its hot claws into the slowly approaching night.

"You're really testing me, Goku," she grouched, kicking the gravel a little before being swept into his side for a quick, rib cracking hug.

"You won't regret it," he assured her, letting her go with dizzying speed before sliding his phone out of his pocket as it alerted him obnoxiously of a call. He made an apologetic motion at her and stepped away, standing straight and briefly becoming the paralegal he was as he answered, before slumping and yelling into the phone, "Hi Cheech, my car broke down again," and causing Bulma and Krillin to erupt into giggles.

"You'll be taking him home, I guess?" She wiped the sweat from her forehead and turned to Krillin, who returned her amused smile with good-natured humor, wiping at his own beaded perspiration with the back of his hand.

"Yep," he responded warmly, pulling his body off one of the cars in her lot and shoving his sleeve up to check the time on his watch. "I've gotta get home and get ready to meet Juu at Sampson's by nine." His voice thinned with anxiety, prompting Bulma to unsuccessfully repress a smile.

"Krillin, I'm sure everything will go fine."

"Kami, I hope so," he prayed. His smiled tapered into almost a glum thing as he prepared for the worst, and then he made his way over to Goku, who was still yelling into the phone at Chi Chi with one finger plugging his ear, fighting a losing battle with poor reception. Krillin tugged on Goku's sleeve and nodded towards his car, before turning back around and giving Bulma a short wave as they headed out.

"Thanks, Bulma!" Goku bellowed into the phone, causing her and Krillin to break into a frenzy of giggles again as Chi Chi's eyes surely crossed and her eardrums exploded.

"No problem, guys. But you owe me one, Goku!" She wagged her finger at them dramatically. Goku gave her a thumbs up in affirmation as he continued trying to relay that he was on his way home to Chi Chi over the white noise of his ancient flip phone.

She folded her arms over her chest as the sun heated her dirty face for the last time that day. "Good luck, Krillin!"

"Thank you!" Krillin yelled back gratefully, before sliding into his car and starting it, creeping out carefully to avoid gravel thrown from the tires pinging his paint.

As they pulled away, Goku rolled down his window, and she could see his silhouette, crammed into Krillin's sedan, his hair splayed out against the ceiling, his oversized white tailored shirt screaming at the seams as he wrenched his body out the window to give her one last thankful wave.

She snorted to herself as she watched the car zip down the street and out of the neighborhood, careening toward the main highway that connected all parts of West City like an artery and which led drivers to its heartbeats, those lively parts of the city thrumming through it.

One small vein led in, rather than out, directing the sluggish traffic in and out of the West Side each day, where the once beautiful and vibrant architecture of historic West City was now a ramshackle and abandoned industrial park.  _Her_  side, slowly, modestly beginning to blossom and draw attention again, where her 'B's Dubs' sat gracefully on a long gravel lot, all blue and pink against the gray concrete of the empty industrial complexes of her street. Decades-old European relics rested around the lot, monuments to an old world of air-cooled engines. Maybe rusted, maybe busted, but with some TLC and an artist's vision, each one could be restored and rejuvenated. Or at least plucked for spare parts.

Bulma gazed at the sunset, now at the last dregs of its descent in the sea of clouds and hovering just above the horizon, a blanket of strawberry pinks and mango orange and sooty lavenders.

A decade had passed now since she'd earned her degrees in the fields of engineering and physics, freeing her to work on the most competitive and conceptual engineering projects in the world. And yet, here she stood, in the center of a junk yard in beat up boots and coveralls, trying to make bills meet and herself happy in the only way she knew how.

She gave a wave to her neighbor, who was locking up his own small hardware store, his old body hunched as he made his way slowly across the parking lot. His dog jumped into the bed of the truck and awaited their departure patiently.

Could she have ever anticipated that this would be her life?

A decade ago, she'd made a decision that had landed her here, of all places. A decade ago, she'd thirsted for the kind of dumb, self-absorbed, careless youth she'd been denied by her gifted mind, by the privilege of having a father who was a prominent voice in his field and who shaped the very policies of politics.

Bulma Briefs had been homeschooled all her life, although that was really a misleading description of the care she received under her absent-minded-professor-of-a-father and her free-spirited, optimistic mother. She'd been given room to roam the city, shake hands with diplomats, sit on the lap of philanthropists, and blow dandelion seeds with the children of activists. Her father's lab felt more homey to her than her own bedroom, and, in fact, her father had installed a cot just for her in the corner of it as late nights tinkering with him grew customary. She had more memories of falling asleep on that cot than playing with children her age, her father tucking the blankets around her small frame and his mustache tickling her ear as he kissed her good night, with the scent of ozone and grease that he brought everywhere with him.

She'd tested out of school at thirteen and had pursued a graduate program in higher education with all the stubborn energy of any teenager. At the age of eighteen, she held in her hands three doctorates from the infamous Peabody School of Astrophysics and Engineering and an award of $200K for her contributions to quantum technology.

And she chose to turn right back around and enroll as a freshman at the University of West City.

She'd loved working with her father, and his patronage had certainly helped her gain a foothold to flourish in their field. He'd been her whole world all her life. But as her peers entered the semi-adulthood that was college life, she'd wanted a piece of it worse than any algorithm unanswered. Newton and the theory of relativity could wait! But this, this friends!, and nights out on the town!, and...well, romance! She wanted to be in the  _thick_  of it!

Shockingly, university life was a disaster. She'd been socially awkward, and the undergraduate studies were so elementary that she had very little patience for them.

"Let's be real here," she'd informed her Biology 101 professor after he pulled her aside for her poor attendance. "You're threatening to fail me because I didn't complete a 500 word essay on 'What Is Biology?'" Bulma couldn't stop laughing, even as the professor's face grew blisteringly red.

The worst part about it was that she hadn't even made any friends.

She'd finally been rescued from a year of loneliness and confused anger by chance, embodied in a girl with chic, straight bangs and the wardrobe of everyone's envy, a math whiz whose thick black hair lay perfectly straight against the side of her shoulder, tucked neatly behind her other ear like a drawn curtain around a determined face. One fine day, Chi Chi's roommate just happened to fly past her into the wall as Bulma nearly knocked her teeth in for calling another girl in their dorm a slut. Bulma was known for being weird, curt, and pretentious, and it was painfully clear to her that everyone could sense her Otherness. Yet for some Kami-forsaken reason, Chi Chi had dragged her along to the bar that night with her tagalong friends Launch and Eighteen and never looked back. Bulma had probably gotten Chi Chi into more trouble than she'd ever anticipated—a bar fight with a whole sorority surfaced to memory—but the girls had uncannily connected.

They'd slept in each other's beds, they'd picked the toe jam from each other's toes to the other's giggling horror, they swapped lingerie and they'd wrapped their arms around each other supportively as the other sobbed into her neck with abandon. But it just couldn't last. Chi Chi was studying law, and Bulma dragged behind her. Chi Chi, highly motivated and actually  _interested_  in law, spent more and more time single-mindedly absorbed in her chosen path. And so Bulma filled the gap Chi Chi left by spending more time with her new boyfriend. Things seemed like they were progressing normally from the outside looking in, but Bulma had never felt so empty. She was unhappy in her relationship, unhappy with how her life had slipped from her control, how something throbbed inside her, unfulfilled. And she was unhappy because no one else seemed to notice.

Bulma remembered the moment things changed with painful clarity. She'd been picking up her boyfriend's clothes from around the house when she'd heard him laughing on the phone behind their bedroom door.

She'd straightened, stared at the closed face of the door.

She'd understood, numbly, that he was talking to another girl, and that the conversation wasn't innocent.

Then she'd simply bent back down and grabbed his dirty underwear and socks where he'd thrown them by their bedroom door to carry them into the wash.

And an insidious, evil idea crept forward.

She didn't want to live like this. She didn't  _have_  to live like this.

This didn't have to be her life.

After only a second's indecision she'd dropped the clothing on the carpet and walked to their bedroom, throwing back the door and filling a backpack full with her stuff. She'd regarded his confusion and anger with the hard, emotionless disapproval of a school marm towards a disruptive child. "Where are you going?!" "I'm leaving." "What do you think you're doing?" "We're over." "You can't just leave me." "Watch me." In that moment, when she finally disconnected with that girl he thought she was, she finally felt truly herself. She had respected her own needs. It felt wonderful.

She'd left law school shortly after, to the shock of her girl friends. The young, two dimensional alias she'd created of herself in college had finally been compromised.

Yes, she was Bulma Briefs, she'd sighed, heiress and daughter of the revered head of Capsule Corporation, a company for whom the sky was the limit and the market was burst wide open under their stead. Yes, her parents were loaded, yes, she wasn't an idiot just because she was failing out of school, yes, she liked to work on cars. She was guilty of all of this, and she would no longer let herself feel guilty about anything.

Bulma was stubborn and dreamy and impulsive, but she was also fiercely independent, and so she, again, struck out on her own, into man's realm this time, where automotives and entrepreneurship melded. It was Volkswagen's air-cooled engines that drew her fascination, their basic yet even-still sophisticated engineering reminding her of the rockets of Capsule Corp, simply on a smaller scale.

Now here she was, earning a broadening, solid respect from the import car culture of West City, a business owner and entrepreneur, just past 30 and not yet hard on the eyes, she hoped. To her left sat her toaster on wheels, her '67 Bus, lowered on air bags and shining with new red and white paint, its chrome VW symbol winking at her from its flat nose. The cream leather bench seats gleamed from the wide windows, and she thrust her fingers into her curly teal hair with a sigh as her gaze dragged toward the other vehicle to her right, where an early model Ford Escort glared at her, rusted through, seat covers frayed down to the cushions, rode far too long on a rear driver's side doughnut. Sullenly awaiting her care. And smoking.

How had Goku talked her into this again?

Bulma let out one last frustrated sigh and turned to close up shop just as her cell vibrated in her jumpsuit pocket. She put it to her ear as she walked into the muggy shop, moving to pull down the garage door as she answered.

"Hello?"

"You're late."

Bulma let out a sigh between her teeth, and the garage door came down with a shuttering clang. "I had a visitor."

"Oh?"

She slid the garage door lock into place and made her way toward her back office, where her car keys had spent the day mocking her.  _It's Friday,_ they'd teased,  _and you won't get out of here before nightfall._

"Yes." She couldn't quite get the admission out of her tight throat. "...Goku."

A rare burst of laughter met her from the other end, and she scowled, snatching up her keys before shoving her fist on her hip. "What's so funny?"

"I knew you'd cave."

"Is that right?" There was nothing funny about this.

"He talked all damned day about coming to see you after work. He didn't get any work done because of it."

Bulma growled. "His car is beyond repair. To be fair, he only asked me to fix the overheating issue. He even ventured to ask me—quite politely—if I would mind making the windows roll up again. Like he wasn't even aware of the nine zillion other things wrong with the damned thing. The car doesn't have a muffler, it doesn't even have a  _radiator_. How long has he been driving it like this?!" She whispered frantically. "How did Chi Chi, of all people, allow him to drive this piece of junk?!" She flicked the shop lights off, and the fluorescent buzz suddenly ceased, only the dim glow over her desk remaining, in stasis, to greet her exactly this way early Monday morning. "I've got to hand it to her," she mused as she approached the front door in the darkness, "it must have taken enlightened levels of self-control."

She heard a snort that she knew meant Vegeta was finding everyone else's pain quite amusing.

She opened her mouth to warn him she would work on it in his garage if he didn't shut up, when he interrupted her.

"Lock up and get over here already," he demanded. "I want out of my work clothes," his voice turned dangerous, "but I want you to take them off me."

Her mouth clamped closed. "Yes, sir."

She heard him "hn" smugly before the line went dead, and she shoved the phone into her pocket and completed her task, grabbing her keys and heading out the door. Leaning against the doorjamb and pulling the doorknob upwards to close the old, swollen wood door securely before moseying across the parking lot and sliding into the driver's seat of her bus, Bulma grew a smile that curled over her face with eager anticipation.

* * *

Bulma woke up with the sun spilling onto her face, and she didn't like it one bit.

She turned her head and buried it into the pillow, nuzzling it with a groan, when she heard a sound she couldn't deny: the coffee pot gurgling. Her eyes cracked open, and as she squinted into the clean morning light, disoriented with sleep, Vegeta's spacious bedroom greeted her.

She noticed that he wasn't in bed, given that she was sprawled sideways across it. That wasn't unexpected. He often woke up at the crack of dawn to work out and get a head start on next week's work. On her one free Saturday a month, nothing was going to get her out of bed before noon. Well, maybe the smell of coffee, but then it was right back to bed with her.

She lurched out of his bed and made her way clumsily around it to the master bathroom. Both his bedroom and his bathroom were military-tidy. The slate gray paint, the dark wood furnishings, the clean white fixtures and crown molding all had a bit of an unsettling effect on her. They made her anxious, worrying she'd get her fingerprints on something or put something back facing the wrong direction. She'd been through this kind of neurotic, unnatural tidiness with Chi Chi, and she understood that clean freaks had a system that couldn't be broken without them meting out unmerciful punishment. But so far, Vegeta had yet to complain about her greasy hands on the faucet or her clothes pile by the bed. Granted, she was on her best behavior. Her most slovenly behavior was reserved for her bedroom at her parent's house, where she was living most of the time anyway. And her clothes were only ever strewn around on the floor after he'd ripped them off of her. He couldn't really complain.

She brushed her teeth and ran her fingers through her bedhead before pulling on her extra set of clothes, loose, cuffed jeans and a shrunken, aged t-shirt. The bedroom door was ajar, and she padded down the dense, soft cream carpet until the hallway opened up into the front room, quiet and empty. She frowned and headed towards the kitchen, sure that must be where Vegeta was hiding, and at least where the coffee pot trickled. While Vegeta woke up in the most excruciating way—with exercise—that wasn't her style. She woke up the old-fashioned way: with several cups of black coffee. But he wasn't in the kitchen, either.

She wandered on bare feet back into the front room, leaving cool hardwood for carpet to stand inside the warm light cast from the skylights, before being drawn to the wall of windows. She gazed out past the parking lot and the expansive, landscaped lawn, observing the sprawling park across the street, where families and students playing frisbee golf already lazed on this balmy Saturday morning.

She felt his lips on her neck before she heard him. Grazing over her skin with his slow, even breath and soft, parted lips, he gripped her waist, his hands working their way under her shirt to cup her breasts. A smile spread on her face, and she turned her head to look at him.

"Have you been working all morning?" She chided.

"What does it matter? You've spent the entirety of it sleeping."

Her mouth slanted. "It's the weekend. Take a break."

His lips at the corner of her own were a  _definite_  manipulation to get her to stop harping at him. Their eyes met, nose to nose, and his gleamed impishly and dark, contrasting with his uncharacteristically pale yellow sweatshirt. He was so often dressed like he stepped out of the front cover of GQ that she was always pleasantly surprised when he dressed like a normal human being. It made his relaxed attire seem much,  _much_  sexier than it should have been.

"I made you coffee." His tongue breached her parted lips. He tasted clean and warm, and she pulled him in deeper, her smile making their mouths fit awkwardly.

"I sense scheming. It's not even noon yet." Was he ready to go again? Kami, they'd barely gotten any sleep last night. She at least needed a coffee break.

"From me? Never."

She ran her hand over his smooth cheek and allowed him to palm her chest like a teenage boy, noticing halfway through his kiss that a smear of grease from last night still graced his temple. She smiled and opened her mouth to tell him when she was interrupted by a knock on the door. Vegeta growled softly into her mouth and gripped her harder, wrapping his tongue around hers defensively as if it would prevent him from having to answer the door.

The door endured a barrage of bangs and the doorbell rang spastically.

"Someone's at your door," she enlightened him.

He disengaged from their kiss, giving her a weak scowl before stalking over to the front door and throwing it open.

"What do you want?" She heard him snarl.

Bulma meandered over and poked her head over his shoulder, and was met with the dour grins of Raditz and Nappa.

"Is that grease on your face?" Raditz asked Vegeta loudly before gasping playfully, a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. "I do believe someone's been boning."

Raditz' arm shot out to hold the door open before Vegeta could slam it in his face. "Wait! We need to talk."

"It's ten o' clock in the morning, shouldn't you be passed out in the gutter somewhere," Bulma quipped from behind Vegeta. Raditz gave her a searing look.

"The time should be an indication that this isn't just some horse shit house call. I've got some important news. Vegeta? Let me in. Vegeta. Come on." Raditz implored him with rare seriousness.

Bulma began to retort with a crack about Raditz and Nappa 'expecting' when the snippet died in her mouth, and she stared at Raditz with wide eyes. He looked genuinely somber as he awaited Vegeta's answer. Well, this was unexpected.

Vegeta growled lightly and stepped to the side to let them pass.

As Raditz stepped over the threshold, he graced her with an approving once over. "Niiiice, Bulma. No bra?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Vegeta, we need to talk." Raditz wasted no time. "Alone. Sorry, B."

Neither Raditz nor Nappa looked sorry as they stared at them with worried, bloodshot eyes.

All this and she  _still_  hadn't had a cup of coffee.

* * *

She'd been hammering for an hour. A full hour.

"Dad," she growled. "This has got to end."

Dr. Briefs, slumped over a console and wiring its insides from a sprawl on top of it, puffed on his cigarette serendipitiously in response.

"There's no other way, dear daughter. Solid fuldroxaline thymalyde responds only to force. I'm afraid there's no other way to get that bolt off the prototype except by old-fashioned means."

Bulma continued hammering, although swiftly losing graciousness about it as her scowl grew more and more frightful. At first, helping her father in the lab had seemed like a great way to relieve the frustration she'd felt at being kicked out of Vegeta's by Raditz and Nappa. Vegeta was nice enough about it, insisting she meet him for dinner, even nodding respectfully at her as she waved wanly at him and reluctantly slid out his front door.

Her phone vibrated against her thigh, and she plucked the thing out without bothering to glance at it, staring piercingly up into the bowels of the wires at the loathsome black bolt and answering through the rubber gasket grit between her teeth.

"Hello?" She asked a bit waspishly, spitting out the gasket and tapping on the cylinder before it erupted, slinging gunk. "Ugh!" She blinked through a slew of oil. The bolt was still there.

"H-hello?"

Despite the sludge sliding down her face and seeping through her coveralls, Bulma froze.

"Hi." She replied dumbly.

"I'm sorry, am I calling at a bad time?"

"Well," she sat up, careful not to bang her head on the console. She wiped the grease from her cheek bones and frowned down at it. "To be honest, I just busted open a cylinder on one of my dad's projects and now have a little bit of a mess on my hands. Literally," she muttered. "But otherwise, no. What's up?" She schooled her voice to be casual, even as the contents flopped around in her stomach and her mouth dried. She couldn't believe this was happening. She had knew it had to happen sometime, but...

"I was just wondering," Chi Chi cleared her throat, "If you'd like to meet for lunch sometime."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm most active on ffnet (same pen name), but because I've been surprised to receive a few kudos and a handful of touching reviews here, I thought I'd expand my work on A03. This chapter begins somewhat like a sequel to Hookups, and although it's been on ffnet for over a year, I'm going to go ahead and update it to its current standing (chapter 22 at the moment) for you here. It feels wrong withholding it when my doubts about traffic on A03 have been proven wrong! :) 
> 
> Because this 'sequel' is longer than the original ten chapters, it may seem a bit slower going.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and an extra helping of my gratitude goes to those who comment! While I don't necessarily write to receive approval, it sure does help knowing my work is engaging someone.
> 
> Cheers!


	12. Chapter 12

Vegeta rapped his fingernails sharply against the kitchen table, boring smoking holes into Raditz and Nappa from across the kitchen table.

They shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

"He did what?"

"We're all surprised, too—"

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Sorry. We're not."

Vegeta shot up from his chair, planted his palms on the table and leaned forward into Raditz' face. "What in the fuck?!"

But Vegeta was frowning with confusion, even as he radiated aggression, hovering in Raditz' vision and causing Raditz' overtired eyes to cross.

"Sit down."

The other men looked at Nappa with mild surprise as he eased out of his chair. "I'll pour some coffee. Let Raditz explain."

Nappa lumbered to the cupboards, searching for the coffee cups with clumsy fingers for a brief moment, before he stilled, wrenching around to hold up an oversized tumbler.

All three men focused on the cup, zooming in on the unicorns and silver glitter that swam in between the plastic and caught the light. 'BELIEVE' was printed in fat pink cursive across the side.

Nappa's face screwed with the effort to understand.

"What. In. The. Hell." Raditz gawked, before his eyes slid slowly over to Vegeta. Both the men stared as Vegeta's cheeks pinkened.

"It's Bulma's," he snapped with more conviction than necessary. He glowered at the duo, daring them to say something, to even breathe.

"Hmm," Raditz mused, eyes lighting up with delight at Vegeta's expense.

Nappa sat a full cup of coffee down in front of Raditz, sloshing coffee on Raditz' lap, who started to stand and protest before deciding he was too tired and settled on sliding down into his chair with a pout. Nappa sat the other mug in front of Vegeta with more care.

Nappa fell back into his seat, which groaned with his weight.

Raditz fixed his coffee with a look of appreciation, then poured enough creamer into it to create a washed out shade of ivory as Nappa chugged the contents of his own mug next to him. Nappa, seemingly producing Vegeta's coffee pot from nowhere, poured himself a second cup of coffee, and then sat the pot on the table within arm's reach.

"Alright. Where do we start," Raditz began, slouching even further into his chair and combing his hand through his hair in a clear gesture of exhaustion. Even his notoriously well-kept hair was as frenetic as he this morning, sticking out from all sides and looping around his shoulders crookedly.

"Last night, you left about six. Nappa and I were chillin' in the work parking lot, getting ready to head to Receiver's for some rum and cokes. Hoping to get laaaiiid," he sung, before bro-fist-bumping Nappa behind him. "You leave. We're about to leave. Out comes Goku, Goku's old man, and your old man. Whatever. We think nothing of it. But we can't help but overhear. It sounds like a pretty important conversation, right, Nappa?" He wrenched around in his seat for approval. Nappa nodded, staring at the ceiling distractedly.

"So Bardock and your old man leave, Goku walks to his car, sees us, and looks like he's trying to avoid us. Naturally, we're like, 'What's up Goku. What's the dillee-o.' You know how we do. But he didn't look so good."

"Sick," Nappa offered behind him, nodding this time at the kitchen tile.

"Yeah, he didn't look like he felt real good. He tries to brush us off real nice-like, you know Goku, and gets in his car and leaves. Whatever. We had a date with the night, know what I'm saying?"

Vegeta looked like he was about to pull out his hair. "Go on," he grit.

"So we're at Receiver's, party's all there but we're not getting a good response from the ladies, we decide to pack up and head to the strip club."

"Of course." Somehow the words made it through Vegeta's clenched teeth.

"So we walk in, flash our ID's, head to the bar, about to be surrounded by ladies, when who the fuck is sitting at the bar but your old man and Bardock."

Raditz paused, staring wanly at the table and massaging his temples.

"They were already trashed," Raditz continued tiredly. "We were thinking of bailing, because who wants to hang out with those old cretins, you know. Probably fuck with our game, you know what I'm saying?" Raditz's head began to shake back and forth. "Oh, no. You wouldn't believe it, but those two…."

"They know how to party," Nappa finished for him.

The men took a moment to regroup from the memory with a sigh.

"I'm halfway down some stripper's shirt," Raditz recalled with growing horror, "and Nappa's halfway into the trashcan puking his guts up when your old man goes, 'Enjoy yourself, kids. This is the last time you'll be able to.' And I'm like, whaaaaat. I'm not really cognizant at this point. That's when he says it."

He looked back at Nappa for confirmation. Nappa was already nodding sadly.

Raditz turned back to stare at Vegeta, pale and sick. "That's when he said it," Raditz explained matter-of-factly. " _'I retired today.'_ "

Vegeta glanced back and forth between them. "It was probably just a figure of speech," he argued anxiously. "Or something someone says when they're overworked and aggravated and finally get some relief on a Friday night."

"Nah, man. He's done. Bardock starts patting him on the back, he's like, 'This is all on me old friend,' and then he pays some stripper to do some nasty things on your pop's face because 'Today he retired.'" Raditz curled his fingers into air quotes on the sides of his face.

"You don't just establish a law firm and then leave under everyone's nose," Vegeta argued, more frantically now. "You don't just go out quietly when you're the fucking senior partner." He was beginning to sweat, a tic forming at his temple.

"Vegeta. Trust me." Raditz pleaded tiredly. "To celebrate his retirement 'the right way,' the assholes…they did something  _horrible_."

Nappa hid his face in his hands.

"What?" Vegeta snapped.

"They took us...to the seediest joint on 39th Street...and paid the strippers there to do terrible things that we will never unsee."

"Never unsee," Nappa reiterated.

"39th Street? You don't mean-"

"Yes," Raditz said, before letting his head fall into his arms on the table. "He took us to Ni-san's. He took us to Ni-san's." The traumatized keen was muffled in the crook of his elbows.

"The gay dominatrix place?" For just a moment, Vegeta's angered face fell into one of childish confusion.

Raditz took a deep breath. "Yes," he admitted defeatedly.

"I'm going to have welts on my ass for days," Nappa confessed, his big face drooping with a weird sadness.

Vegeta stared at them both incredulously before bursting out into laughter. "Whatever, jerks. This isn't bad news at all. This is great news. It means I'll finally get what I've been working towards all these years." He finally took a sip of his coffee and smiled smugly into the sun coming in through the kitchen windows. "With my old man out of the way, there's only one man capable of taking his place. And that's me." A smile hooked the corner of his mouth that sadistic pleasure tugged upwards.

"Nah man," Vegeta heard Raditz mumble.

Vegeta looked sideways at him as he slumped to extreme flatness against the chair, with his arm over his eyes to block out the sun. "It isn't you they chose."

Vegeta froze.

"What do you mean?" He barked quarrelsomely. "I'm the only one who has the qualifications and has put the time in. I've been the stand-in for his job since I joined the firm. I'm his son. There's no doubt about it."

Nappa leaned forward and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Vegeta with intense foreboding. "They're not promoting you, Junior." Nappa didn't break his gaze, despite what he knew was likely about to happen. "They're promoting Goku."

Vegeta's face went slack.

"Sneaky bastard," Raditz muttered into his forearm at Goku as Vegeta threw on his jacket and shoved his feet into his shoes, already out the door as Raditz was sitting up and looking on at the scene with confusion.

"I'll bet you twenty he goes to Goku's first." Nappa drained his fourth coffee and gawked at the hole in the wall the doorknob had made when Vegeta flung it open in rage.

"Nah." Raditz stared at the ceiling, feeling his eyelids droop, the kitchen blinking black as sleep crept up on him. "This is between him and his dad. Fifty on his dad's first."

"It's a bet." Nappa laid his fat head into the pile of his arms, and Vegeta's kitchen winked out of existence for both of them.

* * *

Bulma paced out of her closet for the umpteenth time, pivoted, and headed right back in. Clothes were flung out; some were hauled back in and propped against the front of her body as she modeled them in awkward poses before being discarded again.

She sat on the floor of her closet and slid her feet into several of her mother's shoes that she had borrowed without asking. Her mother just happened to wear her shoe size. Well, very nearly her shoe size. Close enough that if she shoved her feet in and scrunched up her toes they'd go from blistering to agonizing slowly enough for her to meet with Chi Chi for the first time in six months.

Bulma crawled out of the closet and tossed the shoes and clothes back in, the shower of dresses and heels fluttering to a heap in the corner. There was a retro, gold sequined number lying on the bedspread that she felt very strongly must be worn soon. But not today. Bulma sat back on her knees and regarded the closet in defeat.

She stood and padded one last time inside, and regarding the heap of clothes on the floor with a regal, take-no-prisoners scowl that would have even Vegeta envious, she grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

This didn't have to be rocket science. There was no reason to make choosing an outfit hard on herself. She had nothing to prove.

Well, mostly. A small, stubborn part of her that she had to shove down every few minutes informed her that she  _did_  want to impress Chi Chi.

She just...wanted to look adult. In control. In a good place, rather than in the many low places Chi Chi, as her very best friend, had seen her in throughout their friendship.

She never would have thought she'd be this nervous about meeting Chi Chi for dinner, but things weren't the same anymore. As surreal and irrational and crazy as it was, they were different people now.

Thankfully, her generous chest fit into the t-shirt for the most part, and she squirmed her way into the jeans, up over her wide hips, wiggling the hook into the clasp.

She regarded herself in the full length mirror uncertainly before sliding her feet into a pair of sneakers and fluffing her hair. The curly blue mess framed her face like a lion's mane. Not in the elegant way, but rather, the mentally-deranged. She scrunched her nose up and ran her fingers through it.

Now with less frizz, it still sat on her shoulders thickly and shapelessly like a shroud.

"Oh to hell with it," she muttered, tying it back.

Bulma took the stairs two at a time as she made her way upstairs, despite already running late. She hadn't seen her mother all week, what, with her long summer hours scooting their way into her every available moment. The most she'd interacted with her was in the sticky note with a smiley face tacked to the leftovers wrapped in the fridge.

Bulma's mother sat with her back to her in the sitting room of the master floor, nibbling popcorn with high anxiety as her favorite day time couple quarreled over his mistress, who was in a coma, and also pregnant with his triplets that may or may not have been the pool boy's.

"Mom," she issued gently, careful not to scare her as the woman looked on with fear.

"Oh!" Bulma's mother craned her neck over her shoulder to beam Bulma with a smile. "Hi, honey! Going out to dinner with Mr. Handsome?"

Bulma snorted before plopping down next to her mother and diving in for some popcorn. "No," she explained, chomping kernels, "he isn't answering his phone." Bulma allowed an expression of concern to grace her features before focusing in on the drama on the big screen before them. "So, no. It's dinner with Chi Chi tonight."

Bunny gasped. "Chi Chi!"

The women shared a look of understanding.

Bulma broke eye contact uncomfortably.

"Oh, that's great, dear. I'm sure she will be so glad to see you."

Bulma shrugged self-consciously. "Maybe."

"This is the first time you two have talked since you moved out!"

"I know that," Bulma replied wryly.

"What do you think she wants to talk about? Getting back together?"

"We're strictly platonic, Mom," Bulma issued dryly.

"Oh, girl friendships are so much more than that," Bunny explained, crossing her legs at the knee and bobbing her foot happily. "It gets complicated with girl friends. So, she wants to make amends. How wonderful! And by accepting her invitation, you do, too?" Bunny gave her daughter a discerning look.

Bulma scowled slightly and grabbed another handful of popcorn. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Mom."

"I see." Bunny scrutinized the side of her daughter's profile before taking a bite of a piece of popcorn between her small, square teeth. "So what's your honey bunny up to? What do you think's keeping him occupied tonight?"

"Work, probably," Bulma murmured, with a hint of frustration. "He usually answers my calls or texts, but he hasn't tonight." Bulma thought back on Nappa and Raditz' withdrawn faces with fresh worry, but didn't mention it to her mother. It would be too hard to explain all of the...that...that was Nappa and Raditz.

"When are we going to meet the handsome man? Oh! Why don't we invite him over for dinner this week?" Bunny gasped. "Oh, what a good idea!" She answered herself. "We'll have pork chops, and baked potatoes, and pie. Oh! Apple pie or chocolate mousse? Oh, I can't decide. How about both? I sure hope he likes to eat!"

Bulma nearly choked on a piece of popcorn. "Don't you think you're jumping the gun a bit?" She whined.

"Oh, no. It's been how long since you've been in a relationship?"

"Ouch, Mom."

"I've missed spoiling Yamcha." Bulma cringed a little, but Bunny's voice softened. "I want to spoil this new man that has you running over to his house every weekend." Bunny then winked at her daughter. "He must be quite a beast between the sheets, then."

Bulma blushed the fiercest shade of scarlet imaginable.

"This conversation is over." Bulma croaked, standing.

"Well, give my best regards to Chi Chi! I miss my second daughter," she heard her mother say wistfully as Bulma made her way across the room.

Bulma stopped at the threshold before turning back toward her mother with a sad smile. "I'll let you know how it goes."

"Good, dear," her mother called, waving her out as she turned up the volume on her show, already absorbed again in the drama unfolding between her favorite couple and his bedridden mistress.

Two flights of stairs down and she was making her way out of the house, into the garage that was her family's in theory but hers and only hers in practice. In front of her, the ample garage space boasted several top of the line cars: sleek, sexy, expensive, with sleek, sexy, expensive motors. Some imported, some purely conceptual. If they came to Capsule Corporation for engineering and support, the prototype remained here, in her private museum. She ran her hands over one tenderly as she made her way to the other side of the garage, where her Bus sat, stout and out of place.

For a moment, she entertained the idea of inviting Vegeta over to meet her parents.

It was probably too soon, as far as relationship protocol went; and on top of that, where they stood in their relationship was anything but clear at this point. In fact, Bulma thought while worrying the inside of her cheek, it had been going on long enough that it was high time that she get some assurance about what it was they had going on.

Having fallen quick and hard for Yamcha, and then being so out of the dating loop for so long since their breakup, she wanted to pace things very slowly with Vegeta. Compounded by the fact that he was a man that took a long time and a lot of trust to get to know, she was making only centimeters of headway each day anyway.

But maybe, once she worked what was going on between them out of him—because that's what it would be, a veritable surgery to excise his feelings for her—than maybe she would, just, invite him over for dinner.

If he was worried about making an impression—which she really doubted—he shouldn't be, and that was that. Her parents were the easiest people to be around, ever. They'd taken in all of her friends as their own with no thought at all.

The first time her mother had met Goku she'd nearly cried as he left, so in love with his grand compliments of her chili. They'd adopted all the stray cats in the neighborhood in a show of compassion, too, which is how she found her Scratch-arooni. Her parents were good people, and good-natured people, and they made everyone near them feel at home, fast. Even Vegeta couldn't withstand them, Bulma was sure of it.

And asking him to meet her parents would be worth seeing his face when she showed him what her garage held. Bulma giggled under her breath and pulled herself into her bus with tentative hopes and dreams.

* * *

Vegeta's Ghia raced up to the penthouse with a squeal of tires. He'd shoved his driver's side door open before the keys had even left the ignition and took the steps two at a time, sneakers slapping against smooth brick, but it just wasn't getting him to his father's townhouse door fast enough.

He was seething, chomping on his own teeth. He was at a level of angry that someone might have labeled DANGER. Anyone with half a brain or a proper flight response would keep their distance and comply with his demands for the right to a promotion, but his father wasn't a normal person. His father had built himself on an empire of self-control and a total lack of emotion. Towards other people, towards himself. Vegeta understood somewhere where logic swam in the torrent of his rage that, if the decision to promote Goku had already been made, than he wouldn't find his father sympathetic or flexible to his demands. His father had already made a choice, and would stand stubbornly with that choice, even if it meant his grave was dug around him.

It wasn't that Vegeta thought he'd be able to change his mind. Mostly, he was just burning through fury. Mostly, it was just the last straw in a whole long chain of events, a whole legacy of his father ostracizing him and treating him as if it were a real hiccup that he'd ever been born.

Vegeta understood that his father was as immovable as a mountain and as compassionate as a snake. His father's world view was informed very much by an industry, of absolute self-control and the chain of command as the path to success. He had no time for beggars, and no time for anything that wasn't making him money and inflating his ego.

That he had even allowed himself to plow forward towards his father's front steps made Vegeta question his own sanity.

But what was sane about the decision his father had made? The decision to promote a lousy paralegal who hadn't worked, slaved, with a fraction of the effort he had, he who had given up hours and years of his life to advance the firms—his father's—interests.

Vegeta had only put in so much time and energy because he was so naturally driven, so addicted to the jolt of pride one got from a well-won victory, to the sweetest reward earned from pure hard work.…Which allowed him to be manipulated, he saw now. Vegeta was a work horse with an abundance pride, and he was convinced now that his father had attached an invisible lead to those traits and tamed him to work for some conceptual reward that now was never to come.

His father had played him. And what made Vegeta so dizzyingly furious was that he had thought all this time he was playing his father for the win. He had been the one advancing his pawns, smirking in the board room, building his own empire to ensure that his father's dynasty was limited without him and finitely relative to his father's retirement. He was the star of the show at his firm and of West City, at this job that had consumed him for a decade now. That he'd sacrificed everything for.

Everything, everything he could have been.

He'd got out from underfoot of his father immediately after private school by joining the military...and had inadvertently wound up in military law. It was discomforting, sure, but law was something he understood and was acutely good at. And because he and his father hadn't spoken since his high school graduation day—and that in the shape of an empty chair in the audience—he didn't care much about how his foray into his father's profession looked. He had cut off contact with everyone he once knew. It didn't really matter what they thought, because they didn't even know where he was.

And then Bardock had found him. Offering him a place among other top lawyers should he just make some alterations to his life, like move back to West City, leave the military.

With livid, breathless anger, Vegeta wondered if his father had manipulated him all along. Was Bardock complicit in it all, too? It was Bardock's son, after all, that had been chosen. He felt squeezing suspicion and conviction run through him, a taut wire plucked and keening that promised a one-on-one conversation with Bardock's son as well tonight.

He had been so careful, so controlled up to this point, because the rewards were right around the corner! Freedom from his father, once he'd finally retired the firm! Pride as the head of the firm! Rightfully earning the envy of the body of litigators that made up this shitty city. For his profession, he'd harnessed the anger and bitterness building up in him, and it supplied him with the boundless energy to keep at it.

Working at Bardock Vejita and Sons was tolerable, because he and his father had only spoken when it was absolutely necessary, professionally, with eyes and hearts shut. Because pride and face came first.

Because the bone attached to the string was floating in his field of vision the whole time.

Vegeta paced outside his father's door with his fists clenched.

He didn't have any room anymore for logic, control, strategy, to hold his tongue like he had so many other times.

The door to his father's penthouse creaked ajar, despite that he hadn't yet rang the bell.

There was only a second to take him in: the man he'd always looked up to, the man he'd hated himself for looking up to. The man that he tried to imitate in so many situations, to prevent himself from feeling the sinking angst and the certainty that he was powerless without his father. With the sinking dread that despite his affection for the man, he wouldn't ever make his father happy, the man who had, through neglect, superimposed himself onto Vegeta's own identity somehow, turning him into a distorted picture of him, with the same flame hair, the same almond eyes, the same hard pitiless jaw and square palms right down to the fingernails. Except Vegeta hadn't received the chestnut hair of his father, the barrel chest, the pug nose. No, the features that he'd been given instead had been a gift from his mother, features Vegeta couldn't scrub away no matter how much his father tried to incinerate her out of him with his contempt.

Vegeta stilled in front of his father, who stared back at him through lidded, hard eyes, and all at once, the thoughts that had been whirling and wrenching him like an emotional maelstrom in his skull stilled, too.

Vegeta looked back at his father, and for a brief moment, there was a sort of calm silence between them as they each regarded this new event wedged between them. As familiar as the other's face was, they were each looking in the eyes of a stranger they had been betting against all this time.

He wasn't looking at someone he had ever comfortably called 'Dad,' and he could barely bite through 'my father.' That thing which society called 'father,' that gene donor which lent him genetic code, and by rights, no matter how much he hadn't earned it, blood. He was looking at someone that he had wanted so badly, even now, to return his feelings. His father was big and untouchable; he had his claws in Vegeta too deep in every facet of his being, this abominable fixture throughout his life that he aspired to be even when he rebelled against it. Trying to touch that hardened statue, praying to it to offer some proof that he heard, that he cared. And he never would.

It was with that final understanding that Vegeta lost it.

His father would never be anything more than a darkness Vegeta could not extract from his heart in spite of how much he tried.

Vegeta balled his fist with that final thought, and an algebra of hatred took over his movements. He swung the fist in an almost perfectly straight line towards the apple of his father's cheek with a complete stillness of mind. It made its way with simple minded determination, with an uncanny speed, so that his father had no chance to duck or flinch away. It was powered by the same fierce determination that he'd gotten from his father, and Vegeta felt a strange sense of zen returning it to him like this. His fist impacted; Vegeta felt something crack and skin crater and yield to his fist in a timeless, soundless moment.

When Vegeta pulled back his fist, shaking it instinctively as it already smarted with pain, time was released from the barrier of deep hatred and flowed forward, and he was staring at his father's hunched form against the doorjamb with numb regard.

His father looked up at him then with loathing, and a little bit of shock, which Vegeta found most satisfying.

"I quit," he heard himself say, and it didn't quite sound like himself. Only as he turned and advanced back down the steps and towards his car did he hear his father rail behind him.

"You won't last a day without us! You're fired! Terminated! Your career's gone, boy! Do you hear me? I'll be charging assault! I'll have your name smeared throughout West City and you'll have nothing, you are nothing!..."

Even as feeling was coming back to Vegeta's body, his heart now slamming in his chest, his knuckles split and throbbing as they clutched the old leather wheel of his Ghia—even as a tingling numbness radiating from his knuckles warred with the jitteriness of the rest of his body, as if he were coming unfrozen—even as his body felt something, Vegeta felt nothing.

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

At that moment, Vegeta understood what he was feeling at dispatching the tyrant and burning all his bridges:

this remote emptiness was freedom.

Vegeta felt free.

* * *

Bulma had arrived, characteristically, late.

Not too late, though, because there Chi Chi sat, next to a window in the booth farthest from the door, looking tiredly out the window with a tea cup and saucer steaming in front of her. Her hair hadn't been styled, just thrown back into a low, messy bun, and Bulma could have sworn she was wearing yoga pants.

Chi Chi did  _not_  dress this way in public.

Bulma stepped forward in a pantomime of control and slid into the booth as Chi Chi looked up, at first with surprise and then eyes wide open with contained emotion.

"Hey," Bulma said sheepishly, her hand waving a little at half mast on the table.

"Hi," Chi Chi returned, smiling small but genuinely.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting," Bulma apologized instinctually. "My mom says hi."

"Oh. I hope she's doing well. Give her a squeeze for me."

"Sure."

Chi Chi sat clutching her tea cup as Bulma sat stiffly with her hands in her lap.

"So what's going on?" Bulma asked, feeling stupid for it as soon as it left her mouth. What lay between them was palpable, but still they had to do the charade of, "How are you?" "No, how are you?"

"Oh, nothing, you know, the regular," Chi Chi rambled, holding the cup near her mouth and looking outside, around, anywhere but Bulma.

Her eyes were tired, bruised, even, and her lips were pale and thin.

"Are you feeling alright?" Bulma asked with concern.

Chi Chi nearly spit out her tea and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, muffling a strange noise coming from her that Bulma thought sounded a lot like giggles.

"No." Chi Chi said abruptly, this time really looking at Bulma.

Bulma stiffened as Chi Chi stared at her with intensity.

"I'm pregnant."

Chi Chi said it matter-of-factly.

But she looked terrified.

Bulma's mouth dried up.

"Ohmygod," she said dumbly.

They stared at each other with the awareness until Chi Chi said, "Yep."

"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!" Bulma hissed, drawing in closer to Chi Chi and taking her hands and shaking them without really knowing why. "Ohmygod!" She finished lamely.

"I know," Chi Chi said with the same level of insight.

"Chi Chi, you look like hell," Bulma said with concern.

Chi Chi's eyes watered and Bulma immediately regretted it.

"That's not what I meant. I just meant, are you okay?" Chi Chi's mouth moved but nothing came out. "Obviously, you're not okay. That was a stupid question. I'm sorry."

Her hands were still holding Chi Chi's, and she squeezed them supportively, looking at her friend with all of her love for her swimming in her eyes.

It was too much for Chi Chi. Her tears got the best of her, and Chi Chi dabbed them gently.

"Why so glum?" Bulma asked tenderly.

"It's just," Chi Chi began, voice thick with emotion, "I'm just so tired, and so sick, and so alone." Her eyes drifted to the ceiling, and Bulma felt a pang in her chest. Guilt. Regret.

"I'm sorry," she sympathized. "Have you been to a doctor? Are you supposed to feel so tired and sick?"

Chi Chi nodded. "It's all just normal for the first trimester," she said as though reciting something she'd read a hundred, million times. "I pretty much bought out the bookstore's 'Pregnancy' aisle."

Bulma suppressed a laugh. "Oh, Chi Chi. Why doesn't that surprise me."

Chi Chi cocked an eyebrow and smiled tiredly.

"How do you feel about it?" Bulma asked tentatively, feeling out of her element. She'd had no friends who had had children. She'd never even had a pregnancy scare. It was the four letter word among any young woman and she knew nothing about it except that it changed everything. Pregnant. Like it was the plague or something.

Chi Chi looked up from under unwashed bangs wanly. "I don't know."

Bulma's voice lowered. "Are you...are you going to...keep it?"

Chi Chi nodded tiredly. "Yeah. At first, I wasn't sure...I know that sounds crazy, but I was just so shocked..."

"That doesn't sound crazy, that sounds normal," Bulma assured her.

"It's just, it's crazy because," Chi Chi's brows knit with distress, "because I've wanted to get pregnant so bad for so long. I want a family, I do. It's just, I didn't realize I'd be so tired all the time, and throwing up constantly. Whoever said it's just 'morning' sickness is a damned liar. And my boobs hurt bad enough I could cry. And I'm crampy all the time. And instead of feeling overjoyed like I thought I would I just feel wrung out and I look terrible no matter how hard I try and I feel bad, I feel so guilty that I don't feel happy..."

The waitress was suddenly at their side, and Bulma smiled an apology at Chi Chi before asking for a Pepsi and a plate of waffles. "Would you like anything?" She asked Chi Chi.

A little green, Chi Chi shook her head sharply.

"More tea, or whatever that is," Bulma ordered, gesturing at Chi Chi's side of the table.

"What are you having, darling?" The waitress asked without looking up from her notepad.

"Ginger lemon ginseng," Chi Chi answered pathetically.

As the waitress walked off nodding, Bulma looked at her friend curiously, who seemed to be drooping in her seat.

"Sounds fancy," Bulma said about the tea.

"It's supposed to make me feel less queasy." She let out a little burp that was more wet than it should have been. "It doesn't. Excuse me." She was already sliding out of her seat and walking clumsily to the bathroom across the room.

Bulma watched her go with an anxious frown, feeling helpless. She stared at the tea cup before sliding her hand into her pocket to check her phone with the anxious need to do something as her friend threw up her tea in a diner toilet.

2 messages.

She unlocked her screen and met with two texts from Raditz.

_"is vegeta with u"_

followed by

_"cuz i think hes in a bad mood."_

She snorted wryly.

Her fingers moved over the phone quickly.  _"He's always in a bad mood. And no."_

She put her phone back on the table and thanked the waitress for her Pepsi as it was placed in front of her. She leaned in to take a sip and jumped as her phone buzzed against the table.

That was fast. She looked down.

_"I think he might need a bj to calm him down. we'll need pics"_

Bulma stared unamused at the screen.

_"Why are you so worried about him?"_  She typed back, sipping on her Pepsi with the straw in the corner of her mouth. She watched the screen.

A wall of text surfaced.  _"I just really think you should try to talk with him soon...shit got real and I can't find him."_

Bulma felt like face palming. What in the hell was he going on about?

_"What the hell went on after I left? What did you do to him?"_

_"I didnt do n e thing!"_

_"We were supposed to go to dinner tonight but he hasn't returned my calls."_

_"Fuck"_

Bulma rolled her eyes and put the phone down as her waffles appeared in front of her, covered in whip cream, powdered sugar and strawberries and with an extra two cups of syrup. She felt a jolt of glee.

Chi Chi suddenly slid back into the seat opposite her, looking even paler than she had before.

"All better?" Bulma asked her uncomfortably.

Chi Chi nodded slowly, looking at nothing. "Puking makes the nausea go away...but I don't have anything to puke up because I can't eat...So now my stomach hurts, and I'm so achy from all this dry heaving and not eating..."

"And you're sure this is normal?" Bulma asked incredulously, cutting into her waffles.

Chi Chi sipped her tea. "Yeah. Completely normal. It should let up soon. It better let up soon." She frowned, the old Chi Chi showing through. "It's supposed to get better after the first trimester."

"How much longer until that's up?"

"First trimester is twelve weeks….I'm fourteen."

"What?!" Bulma dropped her fork. "So you're...three months along?" She peered at Chi Chi's stomach as though it had grown a head, invisible under the bulky sweatshirt.

"Yep." Chi Chi blew the hair out of her face, her bangs longer than she usually let them go, and oilier.

"So you feel terrible. But I bet Goku's ecstatic," Bulma attempted encouragingly.

Chi Chi's look of guilt was immediate.

The bite of whip cream on the way to Bulma's mouth stilled.

"He's not?"

Chi Chi's mouth began to tremble.

"Ohmygod, are you guys still together?"

"Yes, we're together!" She yelled, causing the people next to them to look over.

"Then why so funereal?" Bulma frowned, not understanding.

"Goku..." Chi Chi's voice trailed. She sighed and hid as much as she could of herself into her sweatshirt. "Goku doesn't know," she muttered.

"What?!" Bulma shrieked, her turn now to disturb the peace around them.

"I haven't told him," Chi Chi admitted in a small voice.

"Why the hell not?" Bulma nearly screeched.

Chi Chi looked defeated. "At first it was because I didn't know whether it was a good time or not. I didn't know...if I should keep it. Now...I just don't think it's a good time to tell him."

"And why the hell not?" Bulma repeated. Her fork still drooped near her mouth.

"Goku has a lot going on at work, and..." Chi Chi's face fell into her hands and her shoulders shook as she began to cry.

Bulma jumped out of her side of the booth to slide in and sit beside her, squeezing Chi Chi's side to her chest.

"He's been so stressed lately, and I haven't wanted to make it worse. The thing is," she said hoarsely, "is I had this all planned in my head. I would get pregnant, we would be overjoyed, I would be glowing, and, and Goku could quit the job he hates, and he would stay home with her and I would support us..."

"Her?" Bulma asked, before making a motion that it didn't matter and that Chi Chi should go on.

"The thing is, is that this would happen after we were married." Chi Chi's sobs wracked her shoulder, and Bulma felt her hot tears through her shirt. "We're not even married—he hasn't even proposed! And now he's been promoted and he's guaranteed not to be around much anymore and there's no way he's going to feel like, like he's in any position to take care of a child...I don't even know if he wants one, because maybe he doesn't even want me, he doesn't even mention settling down..."

"He hasn't noticed how sick you've been?" Bulma asked quietly into her friend's silky black hair. How could he  _not?_

She felt her friend snort into her shoulder. "Sure. He just assumes I've had a lingering case of summer flu. Real lingering."

"Cheech, you have to tell him," Bulma implored. "It's not fair to him that he doesn't know. And it's not fair to you, either. Are you guys having problems or something?" She tried asking her tenderly.

Chi Chi slowly extricated herself from Bulma's shoulder and wiped mercilessly at her eyes, rubbing her face raw with the sleeves of her sweatshirt before taking a breath and sitting straight.

"No. We're as good as ever. I just...I can't help but think...that if he hasn't proposed yet...then he's not in this for the long haul. And then what do I do? I'm knocked up with his child." Chi Chi's jaw began to quiver again.

"I'm sure Goku would be over the moon with excitement. No matter how bad things are at work," she said firmly.

Goku had been a friend of hers for a long time. He was good-natured to a fault. She couldn't imagine her friend reacting poorly to the news of Chi Chi's pregnancy even if he tried. Everyone knew she was the only woman he was interested in being with, so why couldn't she? Chi Chi was overreacting...but then again, she'd never been pregnant, and she'd never had to wait, and wait, and wait for her dream boat to propose to her until they were up shit creek without a paddle and she was just, still, waiting.

She hadn't known Goku had been promoted. Then again, she'd only have found out through Vegeta, who didn't talk much about his work life. She had an idea that he liked to keep work and play cleanly separate, which may have been why he gave her so much hell when they first started seeing each other. She had made a bit of a mess of his rules about work and play.

"He might act like it. But I'm afraid he'd wish it hadn't happened in his heart."

Bulma wrapped her arms around her friend once again and squished her to her chest.

"I'm probably not qualified at all to tell you how you should feel," Bulma began gently, her voice gaining momentum, "but you have to tell him, even if it's hard to do. You've done harder things in your life. You're a strong woman. Tell him, and if he has a problem with it, tell him too bad so sad. If he does whine about it, well..." Bulma stalled. She didn't want to say 'leave him,' but she wanted Chi Chi to understand that she was strong enough to do this... "Well, then." Bulma blew a raspberry.

Chi Chi giggled a little and let her head fall into her arms on the table.

"Enough about me. Go eat your waffles." Chi Chi shooed Bulma, who frowned and maintained her seat stubbornly until Chi Chi pushed her gently out of the booth, grumbling.

Bulma plopped down on her side and bit into a strawberry slice before eyeing her friend once more. Chi Chi looked better now, more composed and aware, like most women after a good cry. Still pale, still in need of a shower and a nap, she looked less peakish and more enduring.

"I don't want to think about it for awhile. It's all I ever think about," she admitted with irritation. "So tell me what's been going on with you. How's shop life going? Is that guy with the old Beetle still coming in to harass you about the thingy whatchyamacallit?"

Bulma laughed sharply. "No! I think he finally realized that he couldn't yell at me for not putting in a new oil filter because Beetle's don't have an oil filter." Bulma took another bite of her waffles, eyes gleaming with amusement. "It's summer, so I seem to have more work than usual as everyone gets out their old cars, but I like the work. It keeps me busy."

Chi Chi smiled conspiratorially. "Goku tells me you and Vegeta are still together?"

Bulma nearly choked on her waffle.

How many times was that going to happen today?

"Yes." She said after she cleared her throat. "Yeah, we are."

Chi Chi's eyes gleamed. "Aaaaaannnnnd?"

Bulma narrowed her eyes. "What is it exactly that you want to know?"

Chi Chi kicked her in the shin. "I want to know how it's going."

A smile blossomed then on Bulma's face, and she winked at Chi Chi before licking the last of the whip cream from her fork. "It's going well! I guess. We really only see each other on the weekends, because we've both been so busy at work. Sometimes he'll pop in at the shop." Bulma trailed off, realizing she couldn't finish her sentence.

"And what, you close shop and you guys get down and dirty?" At Bulma's flushed cheeks, Chi Chi prodded further. "So what, are you guys just hooking up or are you seeing each other exclusively or whatever?"

Bulma shifted uncomfortably, and then sighed loudly. "I don't know, honestly. I want to say we're dating?" She said uncertainly. "Vegeta made it clear...in a really unclear way...that he wanted to, I don't know, 'see' me. He takes me out to dinner sometimes. One time he brought me lunch and told me he wasn't going to make a habit of it." Bulma snorted, and smiled. "I really like him."

"I find that kind of surprising," Chi Chi said honestly, though smiling a little. "Most people find him pretty cold and self-absorbed."

"He can be that," Bulma agreed. "And I can understand why people would feel that way. I think...I think he's just different with me, honestly. I think he lets himself go a little around me, and each day I'm chiseling at his walls, and I think that's good for him. I have fun doing it. I mean, at first, maybe it was just, you know, sexual attraction, but I think we both have a respect for the other that we don't find in most other people. And we kind of meet each other there."

"Soooo...is he at least nice to you now?" Chi Chi took a gulp of her tea and sounded disbelieving.

Bulma nodded, and looked out the window, where the late summer dusk was starting to create a sooty lavender monochrome of the parking lot. "There's something I've come to realize through him that I didn't understand before. Vegeta and I...we come together with conditions, with our identities already in place. We're able to be with each other while still being independent. Since we, I don't know, reconciled, I guess you could call it, we're patient with the other, accepting of the other's quirks and obligations. We just exist together. It's much, much healthier than what I ever had with Yamcha."

Bulma looked up from her waffles slowly to meet her friend's gaze, who stared back at her with alarm, knowing what was between them had finally breached.

Bulma placed her hands palm up on the table and peered down at them. "The head over heels love I had for Yamcha was immature and dependent," she explained slowly. "There was...a desperation and loneliness behind it, which enabled him to make me compromise myself in ways that I wouldn't have ever thought I would for a man. And there was an unhealthy amount of throwing myself away to earn table scraps of his love, 'cause I think he felt trapped, too. Everything was a pissing contest; every time we talked, it was a tug of war. There was no 'just being ourselves' around the other, I realize now. We were just trying to be what the other wanted, or what we thought we should be. Or we were just angry, transformed into this bitter person that wasn't really us, only ever interacting with the thing that our dislike had created of the other. There's none of that with Vegeta. I mean, we had our quarrels in the beginning, but for the most part we just kind of support the other without mincing words, you know? The only thing I think we're missing, honestly, is something I'd kind of like answered." Bulma frowned, voice growing meandering. "Is this a commitment? Because I feel like sometimes there's just no communication. What we have is just, this thing that developed between us that we've accepted as truth, but we haven't talked about what's growing there at all."

Chi Chi looked at her keenly.

"Well, I'm happy for you. Maybe you should talk about it with him, though."

"Yeah, I know."

"No, I mean it. What's so hard about asking him what's going on between you? I mean, it's only fair to you that you know what he expects from you." Chi Chi smiled as Bulma glanced up, recognizing her own language thrown back at her.

Bulma smiled back. "It's hard when it's Vegeta," she whined. "Kami. The man can be so clammed up."

"Even in bed?" Chi Chi took pleasure from the flush that heated her friend's face.

"Definitely not clammed up there."

"Well, then. Let's make a deal." Chi Chi leaned back in her seat, a smirk curving the corner of her mouth. "I'll tell Goku if you tell Vegeta. Tonight."

Bulma's eyes bugged. "Hey! That's not fair!"

"It is too fair! I tell Goku something which needs to be said, and you tell Vegeta something which needs to be said. Then we move on with our lives."

Bulma sipped her Pepsi frustratedly. "Hmph."

Chi Chi smiled excitedly, looking for the first time like she were enjoying herself.

"Fine," Bulma snapped.

Chi Chi giggled as Bulma's phone buzzed on the table between them, and Bulma glanced down.

Raditz.

"'Scuse me, Cheech," she said under her breath as she swiped at the screen and read through the text.

_Um, I have Vegeta. Can you come pick us up?_

Bulma's eyebrow twitched upwards.

_Where are you?_

"It's Raditz," she explained to Chi Chi as her friend asked the server for the bill. "Sometimes I feel like I got more than I bargained for with Vegeta, like he came as a package with those two."

Chi Chi snorted with laughter.

"I think I scared them away a few months ago," Chi Chi mused. "They came over to Goku's all drunk on a Saturday night and tried to raid my fridge. I smacked him with a spatula and I haven't seen him since."

A smile curled on Bulma's face and quickly disappeared.

"What?" Chi Chi asked, seeing her friend's face grow pale. "What is it?"

Bulma looked up with an expression of fright, slowly lifting her phone up so Chi Chi could see the text written on it.

_We're at the police station._

_We've got Vegeta._


	13. Chapter 13

It was the kind of slow summer dusk, dusted all in sooty lavender, that reminded Bulma of a slow exhale. The streetlights surged to life with a flicker, and the fireflies answered, glowing restlessly, and Bulma could only sigh roughly at it all.

After all, she had a hot date with Vegeta tonight...

...At the police department.

Bulma leaned forward, placing a kiss on Chi Chi's cheek before helping her friend slide into the front seat of her car. Chi Chi wasn't far along enough in her pregnancy to be big and clumsy with it, but she had shuffled dismally all the way to her car. Bulma's brows creased with worry, knowing Cheech hadn't been able to keep anything down for weeks. Her oldest friend was, clearly, miserable.

"Let me know how it goes with Vegeta," Chi Chi asked, looking up at Bulma tiredly.

Bulma nodded as she rested her hand on the open car door. "Don't worry about me. I'll talk to you soon." She shut Chi Chi's door gently, the hum of Saturday night city traffic growing around them as the restaurants and bars began to fill. "Eat something," Bulma insisted, squeezing Chi Chi's hand through the open window, which rested listlessly on the steering wheel. "Grab a box of crackers or whatever else you can manage to keep down, lay down on the couch, and watch that stupid detective show with the really hunky cop." Bulma winked, and both women sniggered. "And don't make me call my dad's med team and have them set you up with an IV at home."

Chi Chi gave her a playful glare and set the car in reverse. Bulma backed away, waving as her friend rolled down the lot and pulled up to the busy street, turn signal blinking.

Once she was out of sight, Bulma didn't linger, hustling across the parking lot to her cherry red VW bus.

The new cream seat leather was cool against her back as she slid the aged key into the ignition with emerging disbelief.

It had been months since they'd spoken. It was surreal. A whole half year of no Chi Chi. And though their old friendship had reignited with no problem, their separation weighed on Bulma. She had survived without Chi Chi this whole time. But after seeing how wretched Chi Chi felt, sick with both the secret of her pregnancy and her isolation, she didn't want to know how hard it had been on Chi Chi to endure without  _her_. Bulma felt a pang of guilt through her chest, squeezing her throat, and she held back a sniffle. Maybe she'd been a bad friend.

Bulma had been so busy at the shop this summer that she'd hardly had any time to think about  _anything_  but the cars sitting in her garage bays, and, occasionally, Vegeta's hand skimming south under her pants on his lunch breaks. She hadn't lied to Chi Chi. The last few months, the only time she got to spend with Vegeta was under his mouth in her break room, or sprawled naked in his bed on a Sunday morning while he worked at the kitchen table. It was a bit of an epicurean life they were living out with each other, but she couldn't complain. Neither of their work schedules this summer allowed them much room for romance, or even more than a cursory chat about their lives. Even between she and Vegeta, the shop left Bulma little time for socializing.

As soon as her bus started up with its familiar, hearty old clacking, she was shifting into gear and rolling out of the parking lot towards the highway, which would take her to Central West City Police Department, where Vegeta and Raditz were...

Were what?

Had Vegeta been locked up? As unlikely as it was, she supposed Vegeta was capable of walloping someone who made a jab at his pride or something. After all, punching Yamcha in the face hadn't been very lawyer-like, and he'd just done that in her defense. She couldn't think of anything that would cause Vegeta, of all people, to become unglued; but then again, she knew so little about him. Her lips thinned, and the thought curled in her gut alongside her new regret for how things had turned out with Chi Chi.

Wait. Bulma's eyes widened, her hands tightening on the wide steering wheel. Could this be connected to Raditz and Nappa's visit? Bulma's brows crumpled with both frustration and consideration. What had Raditz and Nappa needed to speak to Vegeta about alone in the first place? What else in Vegeta's life would require secrecy besides work?

What in the hell was going on? She chewed her nails even as the bus sped down the highway at its highest register of 60 mph.

The police department loomed just off the next exit. She coasted into its parking lot, gazing up at the ominous brick structure. Parking in the back, she cranked the e-break and hit her lights, checking her phone one last time.

With her heart tripping, she unlocked the screen to glance at one last message from Raditz.

_Did you bring popcorn and nachos?_

She stared down at the phone with exponentially growing dislike.

_What in the hell do you mean DID I BRING POPCORN AND NACHOS!?_

Raditz' reply was immediate.

_Cuz this is getting pretty good._

Bulma shoved her phone in her pocket before her glower could shatter the device and made her way towards the front doors of the drab two story police department, trying her hardest, her very,  _very_  hardest, not to assume the worst.

The door slowly shut behind her as her mouth hung open.

"What in the sam hill," she grit, staring at the chaos before her.

Milling about in the front lobby were a dozen party-hat-topped men-in-blue, stuffing cake into their mouths and laughing loudly at one another's jokes, the pink foil pompoms atop their gold hats shimmering with their laughter. Country music had been turned up so loud from behind the front desk that the bass shuttered in her chest.

Her gaze ran over the chaos in bewilderment until it found a familiar figure.

Nappa was slouching in a chair far too small for him in the front row of the lobby seats, hands behind his head, smirking.

The cops were pushing each other playfully and ragging on each other loudly like school boys, laughing heartily with mashed up cake still in their mouths, while a few civilian stragglers watched the chaos meekly from the back row.

Raditz leaned against the front desk smugly, observing her reaction, his long hair curling over his shoulder, stately.

She made her way slowly to him, halting and jerking back to avoid the a group of rowdy, gesticulating cops.

It was like reliving her worst fraternity party all over again.

"What in the hell?" The country music drowned out her muttering.

"Well, I guess there's one good thing to come of all this hullabaloo," Raditz mused.

She looked at him doubtfully, pulling up beside him.

"Vegeta is a lucky, lucky man." Raditz looked at her askant, mouth curling devilishly.

"What the  _hell_  is going on?" She hissed.

Raditz cleared his throat dramatically. "It just so happens that the West City Police Department  _loathes_  Vegeta Senior. Vegeta's old man was behind some shady racketeering stuff and framed the department for it, oh, about a decade ago. Since then, they've been looking for someway," his voice dipped into sinisterly cheerful tones, " _anyway_  to get back at him. And they just found it." Raditz raised his mug to Nappa, who raised his back in turn.

Bulma looked around in bewilderment.

"Raditz, what is going—"

A wave of cops spilled out from behind the back desk, blowing kazoos and bursting into laughter. She cringed sharply.

And that's when she saw Vegeta, striding forward from behind them, looking impossibly dapper in his pale yellow sweatshirt, hands in his pockets and smirking. He stopped to shake a few hands, fiendish smile increasing in intensity as they all wished him luck.

Raditz glanced down at the top of Bulma's curly blue head. She stood watching the whole thing with almost comic befuddlement.

The stout, grizzled police chief shook Vegeta's hand, smiling broadly, and the two shared a joke and a laugh, shaking hands once more before Vegeta turned to leave.

As if he felt her there, heart like a compass needle, their eyes met.

The impish joy lighting Vegeta's face spilled, disappearing.

His pace didn't slow as he walked past her and rumbled, "I want to see you back at my place."

And then Vegeta strode out of the station, shoulders broad, butt looking impossibly round and firm in his jeans.

Bulma's head whipped around to face Raditz.

She was about.

To lose.

Her cool.

_"What in the hell is going on?"_  It came out as a squeak between her clenched teeth.

"I don't know if I should be the one to explain that, hun." He looked at her without much mercy.

"You're right," she growled. "I deserve to hear it from the source."

Raditz gave a few cops a casual wave before sitting his "West City PD" mug on the counter and pulling from the desk. Nappa, too, was standing up.

Bulma crossed her arms over her chest and looking upwards into Raditz' long, pointed face with a searing intensity that rivaled Vegeta's. "Now why did you want me to pick you up, if Vegeta isn't in any kind of trouble? Mayhem? Sure, sure," she nodded to herself wildly. "But  _trouble_? Evidently not."

"Because," Raditz explained, taking her elbow and leading her out the door, "we don't have a ride home. We took the bus here once we realized we'd been riding on a flat all night."

"Hot blonde at the bar knifed our tires," Nappa rumbled behind him.

"Yeah," Raditz issued. His balls should have been scampering up inside him protectively as her eyes narrowed, head snapping to the side with just enough attitude that he'd be lucky if they found enough of him to give him a proper burial. But stupidly, he persisted. "It's Saturday night and it's dollar cover charge at Brassiere's," he whined. "We  _gotta_  be there."

Raditz looked at her expectantly.

Nappa stared at her vacantly.

Bulma turned and sank her fist into Raditz' stomach.

She might not have the kind of raw strength Vegeta or Nappa did, but Bulma lifted heavy things. A lot. For a living.

"Now get in my bus," she snarled. "I'm dropping you off at your place, you insufferable dicksmears, and then I'm going to Vegeta's to get some answers. And then," she concluded with a snarl, "I'm getting an ice cream cone to make up for this unbelievable day!"

* * *

Bulma knocked lightly on the door. When there was no immediate answer, she put her ear to the front door tentatively, the wood cool against her cheek. Catching some muffled noises from inside, she grasped the knob and turned. The door opened.

She stepped into the quiet, cool entryway, her sneakers padding against stone tile.

Veering out of the entryway led one to either the kitchen or the living room, where there was no evidence that anyone did much "living." Though there were leather sofas and a modern glass coffee table (though Bulma was suspicious it was more for dressing than it was function), the room was bare. Down the hall, past a guest room and a spare room which held Vegeta's gym equipment, lay his own bedroom, slate gray, cool, and furnished sparely but poshly. It was silent down that way.

There was some rattling around in the kitchen, and her head turned toward the corner of the living room where the gray marble and stainless steel of Vegeta's kitchen glinted past an arched doorway.

She found him sitting at the kitchen table, paperwork sprawled across the table, scribbling notes erratically.

Bulma's lips pursed with worry, and she came up behind him, putting her hand on his hard, flat neck.

He looked up at her, and the confident reserve he held at the police department was as if it were never there. His hair was a bit wild, like he'd ran his hands through it too many times.

Bulma's brow furrowed.

"Have you eaten?"

Vegeta grunted and continued scribbling, gesturing carelessly.

She sighed and meandered to his fridge, peering in and assessing.

She pulled out a few thawed steaks and turned on the oven. The only sounds in the kitchen were the occasional turning of papers and the scratching of a pen on paper behind her, and then the sound of the expensive ceramic bakeware as she pulled it from the cabinets.

She lay the steaks in a shallow pan and rubbed them with pepper and lemon zest, then pulling out the bag of potatoes and searching for the knife, glancing every now and again at Vegeta's back. She peeled and quartered the potatoes in silence, sticking the steaks and potato wedges in the oven as she heated oil in a pan on the flat stovetop. The digital clock on the stove was unexpressive as it turned  _11:24 p.m._ , and she threw the pound of whole green beans into the shimmering oil.

A quarter of an hour later snuck up on her as she bent to pull the tender steaks and potatoes from the oven, shredded cheddar melting and crisping over their golden skins. She lay each steak carefully onto Vegeta's oversized navy plates, wondering at the man's distaste for color, scooping the potatoes and placing the green beans neatly beside them and making sure Vegeta got an extra large portion. The hour long strength training and conditioning he inflicted on his body each morning sure made him wonderful to look at, but it also meant he ate like a bear.

"Vegeta," she murmured, coming up behind him. She didn't dare move his stuff, knowing it would frazzle him, knowing he had an order and control to things. She didn't understand it, but, hey, different strokes for different folks. "It's time to eat."

Vegeta growled, but she didn't take it personally. He was looking at the mess of paper in front of him.

"May I?" She asked, gesturing to the paperwork.

He threw his hand in the air and slouched back, placing his hands behind his head and staring unseeing at the wall, sterile gray in the clean white light.

She swept the papers into a pile with her palms and stacked them, placing them out of harm's way onto a small table in the corner, before sliding the plate in front of him and slipping into the chair beside him.

They cut their steaks in silence.

After popping a bite of steak into his mouth, Vegeta rose from the table and opened the fridge, pulling out a bottle of merlot, setting a wine glass in front of her quietly and pouring the deep red vintage into the bowl of their glasses before resuming his dinner.

They sat in silence for another minute before curiosity got the best of her. She looked up at him, fingers curling around the stem of the glass.

"So...are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Vegeta's face tightened, though he made no other sign that he heard her.

After a few more bites of steak, he looked up at her from under his lashes. Something boiled behind his eyes, thick, well-groomed brows knitting together.

"I quit the firm."

She cried out. "What?"

He looked back down at his plate, scowling.

"I thought you couldn't cook," he mentioned, glancing at her.

She couldn't even smile. She looked on at him with worry. "I can't," she maintained.

"This dinner is a far cry from a disaster," he argued, fixing her with his intense gaze.

"What a compliment." She couldn't help but smile.

"You're lying to me."

"And you're avoiding my question," she issued pointedly.

"Do I need to get in trouble more to get you to make food for me?" Finally, his tone was laced with his usual acerbic humor.

She sighed. "I'm not fibbing. I don't cook. Just not necessarily because I can't."

She moved her potatoes around on her plate and gazed down at it distantly. "Okay. Look. When I was eighteen, I had the stupid idea to go back to college under an assumed name and try my hand at being a normal college kid. You've probably figured that out by now." She glanced up to make sure he followed. "I had already graduated with my doctorates from Peabody and been offered tenure, but I turned it down because I, so,  _so_  stupidly, thought there was something I was missing out on by living my 'untraditional' life." She paused before popping a whole string bean into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "I didn't do well." She snorted to herself, stabbing at her food and glancing up at Vegeta with a small, winsome smile. "College culture made me feel out of place, and wrong, and alone. I was lucky to meet Chi Chi and her friends, who, recovering from head trauma or something, adopted me like a stray. But I was still unfulfilled. Something still wasn't right." She shook her head in disbelief at her distant self. "And when I met a cute boy who made it a point to talk to me at a bar and call me beautiful, wellllll, I fell hook, line, and sinker." She shrugged.

Vegeta continued eating, but she thought—hoped—his silence indicated he was listening.

"It was as dumb as any young relationship, probably. I dove in head first. I moved in with him only a few months afterward. He showered me with affection. I thought it was true love. It wasn't until it had escalated beyond the point of reparation, when he was tearing me down if I didn't have dinner done by a certain time each night, when 'you're getting fat' became his favorite mantra, and he needed me to pay his bills to make up for all these shortcomings I suddenly had, and how I needed to stay in on the weekends while he went out because he didn't like my girl friends, and didn't trust me, and cut me off from everyone I loved that I began to loathe the things I'd once loved to do. I thought it was just the way of things, that that kind of sacrifice was just growing up, being an adult, what being in a relationship was like. I was so blind to anything but being 'normal' that it took far too long for me to realize that it didn't make me happy and that it  _wasn't_  normal. And once I left…I guess I stopped cooking, among other things, as rebellion." She laughed sheepishly, quietly, and then let out a shaky breath. Rather than radiate sadness, Bulma tried to retell it all with aplomb. As she gazed at her dinner plate, lost in thought, Vegeta allowed himself to observe her. "Chi Chi asked me to move in, and she cooks religiously every night, so I just got out of the habit…."

She sighed through her nose and popped a potato wedge into her mouth, chewing consideringly.

His plate had already been licked clean, and he sat back solidly.

"When _I_ was eighteen," Vegeta began, and Bulma glanced up at him with bright curiosity, "I ran away and joined the Navy. I was willing to sacrifice anything to get away from my father. Hometown, girlfriend, athletic scholarship." The air between them chilled upon the reference to his father. "I did well. The black and white military lifestyle suited me. I spent all my spare time getting my degree in law and went on to become an officer and practice law as one." His voice dipped into its lower registers with new venom. "It wasn't until I ran into Bardock at a bar one weekend night and he offered me a job at his firm that the spell was broken. I walked in my first day and found my father behind my boss's desk and realized I couldn't get away from him even if I tried. We are star-crossed," he snarled. He looked at her unflinching. "I've spent years being his bulldog," he snapped, "believing that I was making a name for myself independent of him, even if I was part of his firm, convinced that I could get back at him best under his thumb and that there was no question that I would be made senior partner as soon as the old coot retired."

"And that's what Raditz and Nappa came to talk to you about this morning," she breathed.

"Vejita Sr. has retired, abruptly." His hand furled into a fist. "He named Son Goku as his replacement."

Vegeta watched her heatedly from under his eyelashes.

Bulma's thoughts turned to Chi Chi. "Oh no."

"I confronted my father, and announced that I was quitting. I may or may not have punched him in his foolish fucking face," he ground out before finishing his wine in one gulp. "The teenaged me was willing to go much farther, but if there's anything I care about in life, it's to be a better man than him. Even if it means I have to set the world on fire to take his place and prove it."

Bulma grabbed Vegeta's hand and turned it over. His knuckles were swollen.

"Oh no," she said again, helplessly.

Vegeta leaned back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. "My father tried to call me in on an assault charge." For the first time since she'd gotten there, Vegeta smiled, albeit dangerously. "Unfortunately for him, he has a history with the police department. They called me in to discuss the charges. And I did what I do best." He stared at her with mischief leaping in his eyes. "I told them I was starting my own firm, and I'd be happy to represent them and rectify the penalty tax my father imposed on them as a legislator ten years ago for trying to speak out against his legislative practices. And what do you know? They let me go." His grin was toothy.

"Holy shit," she exclaimed. She shook her head, her curls bouncing. "Vegeta, are you okay?" She asked outright. "So much has happened today…."

He growled, just as her phone buzzed in her pocket. He took advantage of it and stood abruptly, taking his plate to the sink. Sensing he needed a moment, she went ahead and checked her messages.

It was Chi Chi.

_Okay, headed over to Goku's now...Wish me luck._

Bulma's face went slack. Chi Chi had made her promise she'd talk to Vegeta about their relationship tonight, but it was really not a good time. Surely Cheech would understand?

_Good luck, sister. It will go fine._

She stood, grabbing her own plate and moving to the sink, washing the dishes without thought. Vegeta picked off the remnants of green beans before sitting the pan beside her, which she washed automatically. After drying off her hands and putting the dishes away, Bulma moved to wipe down the kitchen table. Vegeta thought he heard her mutter something about an ice cream cone. And then she dried her hands, turned out the kitchen light on Vegeta's paperwork and their memories, and led Vegeta into the bedroom quietly.

* * *

Chi Chi turned the key in the doorknob and entered Goku's small apartment. "Yoohoo?" She called, shutting the door behind her.

She made her way through the apartment, searching for him, and found him watching a movie in bed, hand scratching his head thoughtlessly. His eyes rose to meet hers and he smiled, though painfully.

She knew a bad day when she saw it. "What's wrong?" She set her purse down and made her way to his bed, settling in beside him.

He frowned.

"I've got good news." He declared doubtfully. Count on Goku to approach everything with determination, even if it was Real Life, which confused him endlessly.

Her eyes widened. "What, what's your good news?"

He stared at the television, his eyes black in the dark.

"Cheech...I've been made senior partner."

Her mouth fell open.

Without warning, she burst into tears.

"Woah! Woah!" Goku's arms snaked around her, pulling her into his chest. "Cheech, what's wrong?"

She couldn't talk through the stupid sobs tearing at her. She balled her fist with embarrassment and anger, pulling away from him and straightening, rubbing at her face.

"Oh, Goku, that's wonderful news," she choked out.

Goku was looking at her like she'd grown three heads. "Is it?"

"Goku," she began, but couldn't finish. She reached out for his hand, and he took it.

He let her gather her wits uncertainly.

"Cheech, what's wrong? Tell me."

"GokuI'mpregnant," she choked.

Goku blinked.

Slowly, he pulled her to his chest, gripping her tight.

"Goku, I can't breathe."

"Now that's much better news than mine," he said genuinely.

"Is it?" It was her turn to question him. They stared at each other uncertainly, for the first time in a long time feeling a bit like strangers.

"Cheech, I don't want to be made senior partner. I get through a work day like any 9 to 5 and thank Kami when it's over," he admitted, with rare feeling. "I don't like this stuff. I'd much rather be playing baseball, or watching you cook dinner...and eating that dinner." He let her go gently, placing his hand awkwardly on her lower belly. "But if you're pregnant, I'll stay at the firm. I'll do anything for you, for you...you both. You're really pregnant?"

She looked up into his wondering face, and nodded.

"I'm about fourteen weeks along," she explained. "That's why I've been so sick."

"Barfing is a symptom of pregnancy?" Goku asked incredulously.

Chi Chi looked at him in bewilderment. "Yes, Goku," she said impatiently. "It is."

"Well, I guess I need to be strong, and accept the promotion...especially now that Vegeta has quit."

"What?" It came out of Chi Chi's mouth with unladylike volume.

Goku sighed, scooting down and putting his head against her belly, rubbing her there and listening. She began to cry again, quietly, but this time it was with the weightlessness of relief.

"Vejita Sr. has retired and he and my dad said I'm to replace him," Goku continued, his voice rumbling against her belly with a trace amount of bitterness. Chi Chi ran her fingers through his thick hair, surprised at his tone. "They told me this after work yesterday. I got a call from Vegeta—Junior—this afternoon threatening to put me six feet underground me if he sees me." His voice was heavy with sorrow, and she ran her fingers through his hair. "I got a text from my dad shortly after telling me to be in early Monday since I'm going to have to take over both of their workloads. So I've lost a friend and acquired three times the amount of work."

"That jerk!" Chi Chi exclaimed. "Oh, Goku. This is terrible." Tears started leaking from her eyes again. "I don't want you to be senior partner," she issued waterily, choking back tears. "Is that terrible of me?" She squeaked.

"No." Goku laughed. "No, it's not! I don't want to be, either. That job belonged to Vegeta. He's made for these high stress, ambitious positions. I'm cut from another cloth." He shrugged, shoulders wide in his tee shirt. "I don't know why they put me into this position. I don't know what to do."

"Goku," Chi Chi breathed, looking up at him slowly. They stared at one another in the dim light of the tv. "Maybe you should quit."

Goku's eyes widened.

"I won't," he protested. "I have to support us now, and, and, I made an agreement with my father—"

"—who isn't being very considerate of you by putting you into this position!" She hated to comment on his father's behavior when it was already well-established she didn't like the man, but she was defensive of Goku. It filled her up with a strange, reckless indignity for him.

"Goku, you don't need to support me," she declared. "I make enough to take care of both of us...all of us," she amended.

She looked at him, waiting, assessing his reaction in the dark.

Well, she had thrown in her chips. The moment had come.

But instead of making his own declaration of love, Goku looked down at her stomach, soft but still slender and storing something innocuously inside of it that was going to change their lives. That already had.

He pulled Chi Chi down next to him, curling around her as they watched tv, her fingers moving softly through his hair.

She waited, and waited, and she wondered, with renewed anguish, if he hadn't proposed now that she was knocked up, if he would ever.


	14. Chapter 14

_How did it go?_

Bulma sat on Vegeta's toilet lid, rubbing the extra moisture out of her hair with a towel. She gazed at her phone with sleepy discomposure, steam settling on her screen. It was still early, for Bulma, at least, but Chi Chi was an early riser and a punctual texter.

_He knows._

And there it was.

Bulma's eyebrows raised.

So it was official: Chi Chi and Goku were expecting a baby.

Bulma knew exactly what to say.

_OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD_

Bulma didn't wait for her to text back. She'd already pressed two on her speed dial.

She didn't waste any time when Chi Chi picked up. "What did he say?"

Bulma's voice echoed in Vegeta's bathroom. Late morning light poured through the wooden blind slats and lay itself at her feet.

"He said…" She heard Chi Chi take a deep breath. "He said it will be okay….He seems excited, if a little…overwhelmed," she huffed.

"About the baby?"

"Bulma," Chi Chi interrupted, "has Vegeta told you anything about what's going on at Vejita Bardock and Sons?"

It was like everything from last night hit Bulma in the stomach. "Oh noooo," she groaned, "Chi Chi, yes, yes, he told me last night. Cheech, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to go barf," Chi Chi said decisively.

"Oh." Bulma answered with some confusion.

"No, really. I'm going to barf. I'll be right back."

Bulma heard silence on the other end as the phone was placed on a table, and with wide eyes, Bulma waited. She wrapped the thick towel around her equally thick hair and opened the bathroom door, clutching the phone between her shoulder and her ear, keeping the towel around her body from gaping at her bust. Steam escaped around her, and she walked into Vegeta's bedroom, plush carpet meeting her clean feet.

She threw herself back on Vegeta's big bed and waited.

There was some scraping from the other end. "Okay I'm back," Chi Chi's voice announced weakly.

Bulma rested her arm on her forehead, her hand draping over her eyes. "You sound like shit."

"You sound like you've been hanging out with Vegeta too much," Chi Chi grumbled.

Bulma smirked. "So what's going to happen?" She wiggled her fingers and watched them, her eyes crossing. "Cheech, we all know Goku is not ready for a position like this…"

She heard Chi Chi sigh from the other end. "He doesn't want to do it. He admitted he was just going with the flow, accepting the position because he felt pressured, because they were so nice, he couldn't say no. Bardock has put him between a rock and a hard place. Ugh, Bardock," she sneered. "I'm up to my ears in his bullshit. How many times has he ignored Goku, plainly refused to act like a father? And now he's made it so that Goku feels like he's desperately needed there at the firm, and if Goku doesn't do it, who will? Bardock knows Goku only wants to help everyone; he's manipulating Goku! But does Goku see it that way? No. Only me. And I'm an attorney for a competing firm, and I'm just a naggy, hormonal girlfriend, so I can't be trusted…." Chi Chi trailed off.

"Ohmygod." Bulma sat up abruptly, towel sagging over her chest. "Chi Chi, did he not pop the question?"

Silence.

Nope. There it was—

A sniffle.

Bulma tugged the towel off her head with frustration and threw it against the closet door. "What is he waiting for?" She growled. "Maybe he doesn't want to do it under these circumstances?" She reasoned.

"Bulma, I love him, but he's just…lost, sometimes. If I don't lead him to water…. Sometimes I think he couldn't take care of himself without me. How would he eat? He would just sit there on the couch, whining until the very end."

They both snickered.

"But, you know, he's a dream boat. He's chivalrous, and hard working, and so gorgeous, and pure-hearted…so why hasn't he tried to make an honest woman out of me? Bulma, should I give him an ultimatum or something?" Chi Chi asked desperately.

Bulma's eyes widened.

"Chi Chi, I don't think he's, like, actively avoiding marrying you….Wait, do you?"

Another sniffle. "Yes," she admitted throatily. "I'm really starting to feel that way. Am I so un-marry-able?" Bulma heard a thump on the other line like Chi Chi had kicked something in frustration. "Am I not beautiful enough? Not talented enough? Have I not made the man enough chicken curry that he is solidly convinced that I will always make good enough chicken curry? B, Goku is thick headed—unless he's playing competitive sports, and then he's scarily on the ball—but this just seems…like he's avoiding me. Like, he doesn't mind if we live together and he gets taken care of forever, but something is wrong with me if a guy like him is not willing to commit…and now we have a baby on the way, and he's still unwilling and that must be his true colors and—"

Bulma frowned. "That's bullshit. You know what? You need to get out of the house."

"Oh, no," Chi Chi wheedled, "I need to stay right here. Last time I thought I needed a breather I threw up in the parking lot of the mall before I even made it in for the blue light sale."

"I'm calling in some anti-nausea medicine from Capsule Corp's medical team." Chi Chi began to protest, but Bulma was firm. "I don't want to hear it. This is outrageous, and you deserve a night out. We're going out tonight. Do you hear that, baby bump?" Bulma hollered into the phone. "Your mom needs a night without your shit."

"Bulma," Chi Chi gasped, "watch your language in front of the baby."

They giggled.

"I am so serious. We're going out. Put on your tightest club dress, use up half a bottle of hairspray, slather on way too much makeup. You're gonna show off that bump tonight. We're going to make them want to send us back to whatever reality show we came from."

"Bulma, that's a terrible idea. We're too old for that stuff."

"Which is exactly why it's a fantastic idea. We are going to MILF the hell out of that place tonight." Bulma rolled onto her belly.

"I don't think 'MILF' is a verb."

"It is now. I'll pick you up at seven."

"Bulma, I usually pass out at that time. Pregnancy makes me soooo tired…" Chi Chi complained.

"I'll bring some coffee, you take a nap, I don't know, but it's happening, and you're just going to have to deal with it," Bulma said fiercely into the phone.

There was an exhale, and then a surrendering chuckle. "Just, don't pick me up in your bus, okay? It always makes me motion sick and I feel like I'm not wearing nearly enough love beads…"

"Ohhhh, no, we are going out with style tonight." Bulma grinned ear to ear. "Let's take the convertible tonight."

"Oh, Kami." Chi Chi knew just which one she was talking about.

"Oh, yes."

Another sigh. "Fine. Fine! I'll be waiting. Goku has to stay late at work tonight, anyway."

"His loss! See you then!"

She tossed the phone onto the night stand and rolled toward Vegeta's side of the bed. Bulma squirmed upwards in her towel to lay her head on his pillow and inhale. Her eyes closed sleepily, and she smiled.

Damnet, it was her Saturday off, and yet Vegeta, like Goku, had 'work' to do. She sighed as she rolled off the bed.

She hadn't brought a spare set of clothes. She grabbed her underwear off the floor, crumpled it up into a ball, and threw them at the bed in defeat. Looked like she was going commando until she got to her parent's. She stepped into her jeans and yanked them up over her hips, and twirled around, looking for her bra. She recalled Vegeta taking it off her when they were in bed, and she leaned forward, her hands searching under the sheets. At home, that's where all her socks went—it was a common abyss for garments to fall into. "These sheets are so nice," she murmured into the high thread count until her hands hit her lacey underwire. "Got it." She strapped on her over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder and snatched her shirt off the floor.

As she tugged it on over her head, her damp curls pressing against her face, she had a sudden urge to look around Vegeta's room. She'd been here a dozen times and she still felt like a stranger.

She leaned over as she pulled the shirt over her hips to open his night stand drawer, but stopped. It didn't feel right to invade his privacy.

She stood and stepped to the closet, picked up the damp towel she'd thrown at it, and slowly put her hand on the door knob. She turned it.

The smell of cedar hit her, and she breathed deeply. Of course. Cedar. The man knew how to live comfortably, that was for sure. As the heir to her family's good fortune, she wasn't necessarily unfamiliar with living comfortably, but Vegeta's lifestyle had the rare air of efficient practicality, a well thought out, refined svelte minimalism, a touch of classic aesthetic in a modern home and man. He had his own tastes. This home was the work of a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and she would have never expected it to be so alluring a quality.

She stepped inside and gazed at all the garments hanging from the wood hangers. Her hand grazed the fabrics with absorption. She smiled with nervous delight, clutched one of the suit jacket sleeves, and inhaled.

* * *

"But the most rewarding location is here," Vegeta pointed to an intersection on the map. "This space gets a lot of traffic, and it's right outside the outdoor mall on the west side. It would be a smart space for the clientele that could help finance and expand our firm as we get on our feet."

Raditz and Nappa looked at the map with partial interest before sitting back in their chairs. "I'll call Romeo," Raditz muttered, filing his nails.

"Cash in on your favor, Raditz. Get your guy to lease us this building. Moving on." Vegeta sat straighter in his chair. "I'll need exposure as soon as possible. That means contacting Jez, Nappa. Do it."

"Yup."

"Finally, we will need someone to work the front desk. I'm not answering phones and neither are you two. That's beneath our firm's caliber, and we need to knock this out of the park immediately. We will have enough on our plate as it is starting this thing up, anyway. I want this facility up and running by next week. I want to get working on the job for the police asap. I don't want to waste any time looking for a receptionist."

Raditz looked pained. "Next week?!"

"Yes. I have my old accountant on the new paperwork, and I'm going to use that strategy for the receptionist…." Vegeta stared at them, waiting for them to catch on.

Raditz and Nappa stared at him in silence.

It hit Raditz first.

"Ohhhhh, no."

"It's our only option."

"Send a fucking call out on the internet for resumes. It's that fucking easy."

"I don't have the time or patience to interview a whole host of applicants right now."

"Like hell you don't! You have all the time in the world!" Raditz shouted, bristling.

Nappa made a little noise that sounded remarkably like a "tee-hee."

"What the hell are you laughing about?" Raditz barked.

A high pitched string of giggles erupted out of Nappa like a school girl. "It's Vegeta's ex, and you're the one freaking out."

A smirk graced Vegeta's face briefly. "Deal with it, Raditz," he ordered.

"I don't wanna!" Raditz whined, kicking the desk leg.

"I've already called her."

"Awww, shit," Nappa declared.

Raditz pouted, slumping even further into his chair.

"Yeah, well, we'll see how much you want her around when she learns about Bulma."

Raditz and Vegeta locked eyes tensely for a moment.

"That's water under the bridge," Vegeta dismissed.

"I thought so, too, when I was dating Melanie."

Vegeta's expression didn't change, but Raditz knew him well enough. The pause meant he was reflecting on the issue. The cogs in his brain would turn, the possibilities would compete, his rationale churning out disadvantages and rewards and computing from every available angle. The problem was, what angle would he choose for his own ends?

"This is a business relationship. I'm responsible for paying her income. If she fucks that up, she doesn't get paid. Fasha cares most of all for her lifestyle," Vegeta concluded.

Raditz didn't look convinced. He'd crossed his arms over his chest and had shifted his body away from them.

Since neither Raditz nor Nappa cooked and subsisted mainly off potato chips and fast food, their dining room boasted a cheap, unused kitchen table that was mostly used for beer pong. Vegeta had demanded that they work out the kinks to the new firm here, rather than invade his personal space again.

All of this, the day right after he'd quit. It wasn't even a  _weekday_. Before Raditz and Nappa had even had a moment to form their resignations to Vejita Bardock and Sons. Before any of them had even taken a breath. Vegeta's pace was grueling.

"I just think you need to let her know you're in a relationship immediately," Raditz mumbled with rare care. "If you don't, she will sabotage the shit out of it. Fasha has as much pride as you. The sooner she knows she can't make any advances, the sooner she doesn't feel slighted, and the better off you'll be." He tightened his arms over his chest and watched Vegeta sullenly from the corners of his eyes. "After all, you kicked her to the curb for that blonde when you were a high-falutin' naval officer. I'd watch my back."

Vegeta stared at him from the other side of the table darkly.

"Unless you're trying to get with both of them," Nappa broke the silence, grinning stupidly. "Maybe Bulma will consent to a threesome. Ménage á trois, know what I'm sayin'?"

Raditz and Vegeta both glared at him.

"Fuck off, Nappa," they both growled.

Nappa looked at his shoes shamefully.

"Fine." Vegeta swiped the air dismissively with his hand. "I'll introduce them as soon as Fasha arrives Monday. We'll get it out of the way and move forward."

They sat in silence for a moment, before Raditz looked up, wincing. "You know," he began warily, "my brother didn't want anything to do with all this."

"Shut up, Raditz," Vegeta growled, scrawling notes on the notepad in front of him. "I don't feel like talking about it."

Raditz stood up. "Look, I know you're a bastard. We all do. We get it, we can deal with it because we're passive aggressive losers." He raised a finger. "Albeit, sexy losers."

"That's what I'm sayin'." Nappa brofisted Raditz.

"But you're going to have to get over it at some point. Goku thinks of you as a brother, man. He looks up to you."

"I'm not forgiving anyone," Vegeta snarled into his notes.

"Why not," Nappa paused to clear his throat, "why not offer him a job?"

"You're a fucking idiot. And he's a fucking idiot. We have no room for idiots on our team."

"He doesn't want that position and you know it," Raditz quarreled.

"Then he doesn't belong in this profession, period." Vegeta glanced up with disgust. "Which is old news to everyone. Let him learn his goddamned lesson under his father's helping hand. We all know how that's going to go."

"Shit, make him the receptionist," Raditz offered, running his fingers through his long hair with frustration and fluffing it unconsciously. "Goku's done the work. He's did his time. He may not be West City's next top lawyer, but that doesn't mean he's so clueless that he can't make heads or tails out of using the copier. Just invite him over, talk with him."

"I told him I'd knock his teeth into his throat if I saw him anytime soon and I still mean it. Let him come to me and apologize when I've sued his employer into the ground."

"He has nothing to apologize for," Raditz growled.

"He took my life's work from me!" Vegeta barked, ripping his head up from the notepad and glaring at Raditz. "Everything I've worked for since I was eighteen years old."

"He never wanted to be in this position," Raditz yelled back.

"He accepted!" Vegeta stood up and leaned over the table, his chair knocking against the wall behind him. "He accepted, how can you not see that? That's disrespectful to me."

Raditz pointed at him angrily. "You're being a self-absorbed, entitled dick."

"I think someone's been hanging out with Bulma too much," Nappa muttered.

"I'm entitled to be a goddamned prick about it," Vegeta jeered. "Go work for Goku if you're going to be such a bitch about it. That firm is a sinking ship, and you'll go down with it, too."

"I'm out of here," Raditz snapped, grabbing his keys. "Have fun on your climb to the top." Raditz threw on a baseball cap and tipped it mockingly. "You and Fasha deserve each other."

They watched as Raditz stormed out.

Nappa looked up at Vegeta with sad eyes. "He'll be back."

Vegeta sat down, bristling. He stacked his papers and threw them into his suitcase, slapping it shut with frustration, before crossing his arms over his chest and slouching into the seat.

"No, really. He'll be back. He forgot our car's busted."

"Goddamnet!" They heard Raditz scream from outside.

Vegeta fixed Nappa with a look of burning lack of amusement.

* * *

"Aw, yeah!" Bulma led the way to the bar, and much to Chi Chi's embarrassment—which had just been growing exponentially since she'd started looking for something suitable to wear tonight—started pumping her arms in the air, 'raising the roof.' Chi Chi tried to just ignore the glances they were getting from all the other people at the club. She pulled on the hem of her dress self-consciously. She and Bulma weren't the oldest ones here, but neither of them were single, neither of them enjoyed the bad electro-pop blasting from all sides, and neither of them fit in—and she felt like everyone here knew it. Chi Chi had never felt so emotionally distant from anything in her entire life. She was pregnant. Her life had completely changed. She might as well go find the club's rocking chair and start knitting.

Bulma looked back at Chi Chi with a wide grin on her face. "Relax," she called out, grabbing for her friend's hand and pulling her to the bar. "Everything is hunky-dory! I know we don't fit in, but that's why it's fun!"

Chi Chi muttered under her breath and threw her long hair over her shoulder.

As the crowd made space around them, a familiar figure stood against the bar, her white-blonde hair, in its characteristic blunt bob, swaying at her shoulders. As if she felt them behind her, she turned and smiled with cat-like impudence.

Eighteen thrust her hand out as they pulled up next to her. It took them only a second to glimpse the large solitaire glinting in the lights of the club.

Bulma could nearly taste Chi Chi's resentment.

"Congratulations!" Bulma called over the noise, Chi Chi following up less enthusiastically behind her. "Krillin swung by the shop before he popped the question. He was soOoOo nervous." Bulma winked.

Eighteen smiled with conceit.

The bartender appeared and asked if they wanted anything. Bulma requested two Shirley Temples with those 'little adorable umbrellas,' earning a raised eyebrow from Eighteen.

"We're not drinking tonight," Bulma explained over the music, pointing at Chi Chi behind her, who was standing and glancing around uncomfortably. "We're just goofing off."

"Is that why we're here?" Juu sipped her martini with narrowed eyes.

"Yes. That's why we're here, of all places. We don't want to talk, we just want to dance and have guys all up on us."

Bulma had had a talk with both women separately before they'd arrived, and both women knew the deal—well, mostly.

She'd let Juu know Chi Chi needed some picking up, and had asked Juu in attractive enough language if she'd grace them with her presence tonight. "Like old times," she'd said, "right, 'Eighteen?'"

Bulma had, of course, asked permission from Chi Chi if they could invite Juu, to which Chi Chi agreed—conditionally. No one but Bulma and Goku were to know about her pregnancy right now.

"Whyyyeeeee?" Bulma had whined. "We should celebrate!"

"Because my life is a clusterfuck and I'm not ready to be openly vulnerable, okay?" Cheech had snapped.

Knowing Chi Chi couldn't drink, Bulma wouldn't be drinking either tonight to show solidarity with her friend. That was fine; Bulma didn't need to get plastered. This was about getting Cheech out of the house for the first time in forever, darnet, and getting her mind off of Goku and feeling like a bag of butts for the last few months.

"It's three karats set next to two sapphires on a platinum band," Eighteen was saying. "Better than the dinky solitaire he got for his ex, Maron." She sipped her martini, scanning the dance floor.

Bulma saw Chi Chi roll her eyes from behind Eighteen.

She'd known Juu would show off her ring and want to talk about the engagement; it was just in her nature. She'd expected there to be a little awkwardness and hostility from Chi Chi that Juu would be, fortunately or unfortunately, oblivious to. There was just no way to warn Juu without giving Chi Chi away, so Bulma had sucked in her breath and crossed her fingers.

She'd just redirect the convo. Easy as pie. "Let's go find some hunky guys to dance with!" Bulma offered, wiggling her eyes suggestively.

"Where's your hunky guy tonight, anyway?" Juu asked her, sitting her empty glass on the bar and turning. "You didn't invite him?" Juu smiled as if the idea was amusing.

Bulma blew her hair out of her face. "He's busy." Bulma shrugged, glancing at Chi Chi. "He hasn't exactly messaged me at all today."

"Hmm," Juu said, and it rubbed Bulma the wrong way. "Well, Krillin is playing a game tonight. I was supposed to go, but I blew him off for you girls."

"Ovaries before brovaries," Bulma cried out over the music.

The women walked towards the dance floor, Juu's tall, modelesque frame leading the way.

"I see who wears the pants in that relationship," Chi Chi muttered.

Bulma snickered, leaning in. "Did you imagine it any other way?"

"I heard what happened with Yamcha," Juu mentioned smoothly, glancing back at Bulma. The other women stiffened a little, not knowing if she would mention their falling out.

"Vegeta hit him hard enough that he missed the next few practices." Juu scoffed. "Lord, that man is such a centerfold waiting to happen. Wish I would have made him my friends-with-benefits before you did. But, you know, his firm is my competition."

"Back off, sister," Bulma grumbled.

"Tell me," Juu eyes twinkled over her shoulder, her smile cutting, as she stopped to claim a space on the dance floor. "Is he as big down there as his ego?" Juu's eyes flicked to Bulma's crotch.

Bulma's stomach knotted a little. She smiled thinly but managed a wink. "Bigger."

Chi Chi rolled her eyes. "Any bigger than his ego and his dick wouldn't be practical," she muttered.

The beat picked up, and Eighteen merged with the group dancing beside her.

Bulma turned to Chi Chi, rolling her hips dramatically. Chi Chi couldn't help the giggle from escaping her mouth. "Has anyone ever told you you can't dance? It's terrible to watch. Just mortifying."

Bulma danced around Chi Chi before waving her ass in her direction. "Dance up on me, Cheech!" Bulma ground herself into the floor before 'vogue-ing' Chi Chi's belly.

Chi Chi burst out laughing.

As the blue and violet lights swept over them, a large figure emerged from the crowd, hovering over them.

"Care to dance?"

The women looked up at a big guy in a too-tight pink polo.

Chi Chi's eyes flicked to Bulma. The questionable vibes the guy was giving off were malleable.

"Uh, sure," Chi Chi agreed, pulling once more at the hem of her orange dress with ruffles from neckline to hemline and ruching all along her hips, conveniently distracting anyone from noticing the slight bump at her waist.

Bulma watched them from the corner of her eye, dancing by herself. Chi Chi was wrong; she was a great dancer, especially when no one was watching, though most especially when she was drunk.

Without anyone to talk to, Bulma got to thinking about Vegeta.

Something about their relationship was gnawing at her. Ever since she'd spoken to Chi Chi, she'd quietly worried about the status of the thing that was  _them_. It wasn't necessarily that Cheech had infected her with her paranoia and misery, but this was just another night in a whole slew of nights that Vegeta spent working without getting in touch with her. Was it…was it because she wasn't all that important to him? Chi Chi was right, she knew she'd feel better once they'd cleared the air. But the thought filled her with dread. Was it because she didn't want to step on any toes, or because she couldn't bear it if he said no?

Bulma raised her head just in time to see the guy dancing with Chi Chi run his hands up her sides and squeeze her breasts.

Chi Chi yelped in pain, spun around, and slapped him.

"What the fuck, bitch?" The guy was a cro-mag, his voice like chewing rocks.

"You can't just touch me there, you idiot!"

"You can't just touch a woman without her consent!" Bulma snapped, grabbing Chi Chi's arm defensively.

The man regarded them with stony apathy. "Why else would two ladies like you be in a night club unless you were looking for a little attention?" He gestured to his crotch.

Both women's jaws dropped.

"What are you saying?"

"Excuse me?" Chi Chi began testily. "Neither of us are here for your amusement. Both of us are very satisfied, successful women with boyfriends!" She bared her teeth. "Strong ones!"

"Just two awesome women who just happen to be wearing ridiculously short dresses!" Bulma added. "Get over it!"

He rolled his eyes at them. "Yeah, whatever." His tanned skin was nearly orange. "All women want to be sluts when they're at the club, career women or not. When you're ready for a real man, come talk to me." He made a motion with his hand like he was talking on the phone. "I don't mind if you're knocked up." He leered at Chi Chi, and turned away.

Chi Chi had absolutely had it.

She had had it up to  _here_  with feeling emasculated.

Grabbing the guy's shoulder, Chi Chi spun him around and punched him square in the nose.

Bulma and the crowd around them gaped as he went down.

The two women stared at him as he lay unmoving on the floor.

"Call an ambulance!" Someone shouted from somewhere near them.

The women looked up at each other.

Absurdly, Chi Chi's face split into a foolish grin. She put her hand over her mouth to hide it. "That felt good!" Her eyes were alight with excitement.

Bulma gaped. "Ohmygod, Cheech, you're a pregnant lady and he was five times your size!" Bulma didn't know what she was doing with her hands but it was a little bit like jazz hands.

Bulma and Chi Chi stared at each other before they were racked with laughter.

Two bouncers approached them ominously, and Bulma and Chi Chi raised their hands in defeat, turning to leave. "We're going, we're going!"

* * *

The girls sipped their milkshakes through their straws noisily as they watched the crowd, mostly teenagers, mill around the late-night hamburger stand. The women stuck out like a couple of sore thumbs: Chi Chi in her bright orange club dress and nude stilettos, and Bulma in her leather mini, paired with an obnoxious pair of thigh high boots. Chi Chi's hair had been straightened and oiled and lay down the front of her all the way to her slender waist, while Bulma had teased hers into what she hoped was a very high fashion afro. At least it scared away the teenagers.

"You know, that anti-nausea medicine your father sent me is positively wonderful. He gave me a few months worth, by the way." Chi Chi's eyes cut to her friend as she swallowed the remainder of her strawberry milkshake. "I haven't felt this good in months."

"We Briefs' are truly amazing people, I know," Bulma agreed smugly, winking at her. The girls continued to people watch as they leaned against the outside wall. It was just after midnight, and they had both had a hankering for comfort food. Bulma, like usual, had known just where to go.

"It's too bad we lost Juu," Chi Chi mused quietly. Bulma snorted, and the girls smiled naughtily at one another.

"Juu's fine by herself," Bulma dismissed, tossing her milkshake cup into the trash a few feet away from them. "Although I do feel awfully bad that we invited her out and abandoned her there half an hour in."

"Is it just me, or is Juu really self-absorbed lately?" Cheech whispered, cautiously.

Bulma nodded in confidence. "I liked it better when it was, like, ironically self-absorbed. Like, sarcastically conceited. Like, 'ha, ha, this is me making fun of you all.' I think she might have forgotten that it was an act."

"Poor Krillin," lamented Chi Chi.

"Poor Krillin. Hey, watch this," Bulma told Chi Chi, before pulling out a small mirror and a tube of lipstick from her black clutch. Bulma, blue eyes wide, made an 'O' with her lips and, to both their delight, carefully, expertly reapplied her lipstick.

"You deserve an award!" Chi Chi cried.

"Maybe I'll start wearing it at work. That'll bring in the customers, right? I think the damned thing is called 'Sports Car Red,' too."

"Might end up bringing Vegeta in a little too often," Chi Chi laughed.

Bulma looked winsomely at the night sky. "I don't think he'd appreciate it if I left red lipstick all over his crisp white shirts. He's such a buzzkill."

"He might appreciate it if you left it in a ring around the base of his cock," Chi Chi said deviously, and both the girls eyes glittered with mischief.

"Language!" Both of the women turned to see a horrified woman clapping her hands over her son's ears. As the woman led her son away by his head, both the girls began giggling.

"You know, after the baby's born, I think I'm going to get back into martial arts," Chi Chi mused as they strut to Bulma's car.

"Gangster of love over here." The women's heels clacked on the pavement.

"Punching that jerk felt so good," Chi Chi breathed, eyes bright. "I need more of that in my life right now."

"Cheech, you're almost four months pregnant. Don't get too excited; you'll pull a hammy or fall over or something."

"Bulma, I'm pregnant, not crippled." Chi Chi sent her a dark look. "You know I was an upper degree black belt before I went into business with Baba and Korin. I just haven't had time to practice at the dojo. It's not like I'll be bench pressing a car or doing triathlons or anything," she reasoned. "Plus, if I was afraid of pulling a hammy, I wouldn't have gone out in these heels."

"Speak to your doctor about it, at least," Bulma relinquished, "and that's because you're fresh to death."

The women smiled affectionately at each other before opening their car doors. The car was sleek and deep, deep red, and a group of teenaged boys who had been checking it out reluctantly cleared as the two women slid in.

"You know," Chi Chi declared as she buckled herself in. "I have to hand it to you. Tonight was exactly what I needed."

Bulma smiled closemouthed with delight, laying a look of love on her friend.

"Me, too," she confided.

The car turned on with a roar, and Bulma put it into reverse.

"Later, suckers," she called as they peeled away from the hamburger stand.

* * *

Bulma hadn't expected him to be waiting at her house when she pulled up.

The sudden quiet upon turning off the car was omnipresent as she got out. The street was quiet in the late night hours, the street lights dim and the dark, intimate. He leaned against his Porsche parked in the street, a dark James Dean, and she walked over to greet him.

"How did you know I lived here?" She asked cheekily. Obviously she lived here. It only said "Capsule Corporation" on the backside of it large enough to be seen from a mile away.

She couldn't help the smile curling on her face. "What are you up to?"

"I should ask the same of you." He stared at her outfit with ambivalence.

"Oh, this old thing?" Bulma laughed, looking down at her leather ensemble. "I took Chi Chi out clubbing. Didn't you know, it was goofball night at the club, no cover charge." She winked at him.

Vegeta snorted. "You two, clubbing?" He rested his arms against his chest. "Hard to imagine."

"Yeeeeah." Bulma pulled up close to him, tugging on his shirt collar. "Well, we weren't there very long before Chi Chi decked some guy who got handsy with her. Knocked him out clean. I have a question for you," she breathed against his neck. She had missed him.

"Hmm," he grunted.

She leaned into his ear, murmuring. "Have you ever wished a woman would leave a lipstick stain around your cock?" She bit his ear lobe delicately. "Because I happen to be a woman who is wearing an indecent shade of red lipstick."

"Have you been drinking?"

"Negative. I'm just like this." She drew her tongue over the curve of his ear. "I don't need alcohol to get excited just thinking about you."

She felt his face get warm.

She drew back.

"Are you blushing?" A smile split her face. "Is that what it takes to knock you down a peg or two? When I talk dirty to you?"

Vegeta looked to the side, embarrassment and irritation warring on his face, and she drew his face back to hers with her hands.

"Vulgar woman," he muttered as they stared at each other nose to nose.

She smiled up at him and then shrugged. "What can I say? I'm in a good mood. I had a good night. We made a fool of ourselves at the club and then went out for milkshakes. How 'bout you?" She peered up at him.

Her answer was two hands on her ass. "I was thinking you could show me the Maserati I watched you peel up in and maybe what kind of underwear you're wearing under all that leather."

She grinned, rubbing her nose against his. "If you like my Maserati, you should see my other cars."

His eyebrow rose.

Her eyes twinkled. "And, I'm not wearing any."

She felt his thumb glide up underneath the hem of her dress and caress her fleshy backside. Mischievously, she put her mouth on his neck, drawing her lips over his corded neck lightly. In the dark, leaning against him, she licked his salty flesh. She pressed her lips against his neck and looked back on her red lip print with the satisfaction of a graffiti artist signing his work.

"Impudent wench," he murmured huskily.

"I even shaved my legs," she purred.

His thumb trailed up, up, up, and she cocked her hips so that he had definitive proof she'd gone commando, grinning into his neck.

He gripped her bare ass in the moonlight as his other hand brushed her core, and she was just toying with the idea of falling to her knees for a particular kind of supplication when they were startled by the sound of shoes on pavement. She clutched his shirt, startled, as a figure appeared out of the darkness.

"Oh. My. Gosh. Is this that handsome man you keep telling me about, Bulma Briefs?"

With horror, Bulma rigidly peered over her shoulder to see her mother's cheery face beaming back at her in excitement.

"How do you do? I'm Bunny, Bulma's mother!" To her increasing mortification, her mother stuck her hand out for Vegeta to shake. Vegeta had already peeled himself away from her, standing almost comically straight and with a healthy space between them.

"How are you, Ms. Briefs?" Vegeta cleared his throat and shook her hand quickly with the same hand that not a moment earlier had been poised to enter her most private region. "I'm Vegeta. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Ohmygod," Bulma said, but no one heard her.

"Would you like to come in? Dr. Briefs and I are just watching television and I've got some popcorn on the stove, if you'd like some!"

"Ohmygod." Bulma didn't even know: was she announcing it out loud, or was it just whirling round and round in her head frenetically at this point?

"Thank you very much for your hospitality, but I was just getting ready to leave."

"Oh, that's a shame." Her mother's face dipped into a pout. Bunny stomped lightly with her heel in dissatisfaction. "Well, what are you doing tomorrow night? We would just love to have you over for dinner! Bulma and I were just talking about it! What's your favorite meal, I'll cook it for you! I could make chicken! I make a good baked chicken breast. Oh! Do you like pork? We could have stew! Oh, I'd have to go to the store and get yeast for dough, I'm all out. I'll make rolls to go with that stew, oh, you'll love it! Next Saturday at four sound good to you?"

Her mother's heart shaped face crinkled with a big smile, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes doing nothing to diminish her classic beauty. Bulma looked between the two of them with horror. Wait, was she breathing? Had she breathed at all in the last minute?

Vegeta cleared his throat awkwardly.

"You know, Mom," Bulma butted in, "I'm not sure Vegeta has time—"

"Yes. Sure," Vegeta answered.

Bulma wasn't sure she heard right. In fact, she heard wrong. Most definitely. She heard wrong.

Bulma's mother looked like she was going to shoot off into space. "Oh, that's wonderful! Oh, I can't wait! Neither can Bulma, I'm sure! We will see you then! Have a wonderful night!" As Bulma stood reeling, Bunny turned to her with her hands clutched over her heart dramatically. "Oh, honey," she said, to Bulma's supreme embarrassment. "Isn't he just the handsomest thing? Even more handsome than Yamcha," she whispered. Bulma's mouth dropped. Bunny hid a giggle. "Oh my! I'm so mean! Well, I'll see you inside!"

Bulma and Vegeta watched Bunny make her way carefully through the grass in her heels before entering the large house.

It took a long moment for them to face each other.

"I'm sorry," Bulma immediately began, "I had no intention of you meeting my parents so soon or siccing my mother on you just yet—"

Vegeta ran his hand over his face and through his hair miserably, and then looked at her with wild eyes. "Are you done?" He snapped.

"What?"

"Are you done talking?"

"Wh—I guess so. Why—ooph." His mouth on hers halted the words from coming from her mouth, and to her confusion and delight, his tongue slipped into her mouth.

"Your mother makes me extremely uncomfortable," he grumbled against her mouth.

She burst into giggles.

"She grows on you."

"I just…came here to…say hi. Because I had to leave early this morning. That's all I wanted," he griped. "I've been busy." He glowered down at the street self-consciously.

She watched him get uncomfortable and frustrated in the starlight and there was something absolutely endearing about it. She smiled tenderly up at him.

"I'll see you Monday. I'll bring you lunch," he finished roughly, but pulled her in for another kiss before letting her go abruptly and getting in his car.

"Alright, big guy. See you soon." She backed up onto the sidewalk and watched him drive off, down the street and out of the old, historic neighborhood where her parents resided. She sighed, arms crossed, unconsciously resting her hand over her heart. When his taillights had disappeared, Bulma nearly skipped over the lawn, taking the stairs by two, falling into her bed, and clutching her pillow with a giant, lopsided smile.

* * *

Bulma glared at the clock. Veritably  _scowled_  at it.

_10:45._

It wasn't noon yet. It wasn't even  _noon_  yet.

She hadn't even been able to pour herself a second cup of coffee from the beat up pot in her office. Just the one that she hadn't gotten to take a sip from yet. The mug she hadn't had any time to reach for, cold and stained, looking pathetic and unwanted. She picked it up anyway and sipped cautiously. The coffee was sludge in her mouth.

She grimaced and put the mug down.

She hadn't had any  _fucking_  coffee yet and she was  _already_  swamped.

Earl, one of her tow truck guys, had brought her not one but two cars this morning as she unlocked the door. One guy had strut in at seven, before they were even open, and demanded she fix his windshield wipers for free. One woman had drove her second generation Jetta in on a flat. Bulma found no leak. When Bulma had shocked the woman with the knowledge that one could air up tires, Bulma had asked with growing horror when the last time she'd had an oil change was. The woman hadn't been able to answer. What's an oil change? She'd let that woman quickly know how very, very important it was she get her oil changed as soon as possible, to which the woman had accused Bulma of fishing for money.

Another guy had drove his BMW in and asked her if he could speak to the mechanic about a sound his car was making. When she told him that she was the mechanic, he'd replied, "No, sweetheart, I need to speak with a  _male_  mechanic."

Not a half an hour ago, she'd went to change the oil in a Bus, the same year as her own, and been reminded several times by the owner that it was air-cooled and didn't need a filter. "No shit, sherlock," she'd growled under the chassis just as her hand slipped on the wrench, sending debris and oil into her face.

Monday was making itself known to her in very profound ways today.

Bulma fell into her office chair with a big sigh. She rested her chin in her palm for a moment, and then got out her notepad tiredly, scrawling a note above the name of a car and crossing another off her list. By god, if she didn't get at least one car done and out of her lot today….Well, she wasn't leaving until she did. She still had to file all this paperwork before it crowded her out of her desk. She probably aught to send a text to her mom asking her to go ahead and wrap dinner up for her.

She picked up the phone and tucked the pencil in between her teeth, dialing out on the old rotary phone. "Yeah, Keene?" She chomped on the pencil. "I need a delivery of some parts, and I need them by this afternoon, if you can manage it."

She swiveled and reached behind her, grabbing a pack of cigarettes. She hadn't been smoking as often lately unless she were just, er, freshly fucked (Vegeta had a way with that), but she definitely needed one now. She hadn't needed one so badly since she and her father had wrecked the rocket prototype they'd spent all year building.

She tamped one out and replaced the pencil in her mouth with the cigarette, tapping the pencil on the desk until she was taken off hold.

"What do you mean you can't get it to me until tomorrow? What about tonight?"

Bulma's head fell into her palm.

"Fine. Tomorrow morning. Seven o'clock. I'll be here. Bye." Bulma stood, grabbing a lighter and heading for the office behind her. She grabbed a two liter of Pepsi from the mini fridge and brought it back into the front room. It opened with a hiss, and it was the sweetest sound she'd heard all day.

She was lighting her cigarette and pouring the Pepsi into a large thermos when the bell rang, indicating someone had walked in. She didn't bother looking up. Just ten seconds. She just needed ten seconds to take a sip of carbonated ambrosia and a long drag off her cigarette and she'd be prepared for whatever life was going to hand her today.

Bulma blew smoke, and steeling herself, looked up. A woman in a sharp pantsuit was looking around, clutching a briefcase. Her features were sharp, her black hair cut in a blunt bob, her eyebrows thick and fiercely shaped ala Grace Jones. Bulma narrowed her eyes, assessing. The woman didn't look confused or uncomfortable, like most women who stumbled into her shop. She looked instead like a woman who knew exactly where she was in life.

Bulma took one last drag before putting out the cigarette and bent down to scribble one last note in the notepad. "Can I help you with something?" She said into the notepad, smoke curling out of her mouth.

The woman finally turned to her. "Are you the owner of this…business?"

"Yes, ma'am." She gave her a small smile before taking a sip of her Pepsi. She could have groaned with fulfillment.

"Ah. A woman entrepreneur. It's wonderful to see a woman succeeding in a man's world. In a man's field, rather." The woman smiled at Bulma, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

Bulma's eyebrow rose, and she smiled tiredly. "Thank you," she responded, sincerely. "It's made clear every day just how much work needs to be done before my gender is secondary to my qualifications. Is there something I can help you with?" Bulma wiped her hands on her hips.

"I'm meeting someone here." The woman smiled again, but this one was cool. There was something really…unsettling…about this woman, something Bulma couldn't put her finger on.

"Car trouble?" Bulma grabbed her handkerchief and wrapped it around her head second-naturedly, knotting it on top, before coming around in front of the desk.

"Something like that," she cooed.

The woman's eyes raked over her, and Bulma knew that things had suddenly gotten real.

She leaned back on her desk and let the woman look, folding her arms across her chest as she took in her muddy, greasy boots, her stained, shapeless canvas jumpsuit, her greasy black hands and ashy face, dusted with debris. There was something she really didn't like about this woman, she realized, and she had a growing conviction that the woman's compliments were high-handed.

"So, I heard through the grapevine that you're good friends with the men at Bardock Vejita and Sons. Well, some of the men. And some better than others." She smiled sweetly.

Bulma's eyes narrowed. "Well, that's one way to start up a conversation. What is it exactly that you're digging for?"

The woman did her best to appear taken aback, and tried to recover. "No, not at all. I'm just wondering how men in their positions get to be friends with someone like you."

Bulma grit her teeth. "Are you suggesting that I'm too working class to have friends in law?"

"Well," the woman shrugged, "it's just the nature of these things. I was just curious."

"How I came to be friends with them is none of your business." She didn't have time for this shit. "Do you have business to do with me? Because I'd like to see you out if you do not."

The woman cut to the chase. "You are certainly as crude." Her smile was oily. "Tell me, do you enjoy embarrassing yourself around Vegeta? Look at you." She glanced at Bulma's work clothes. "He must be horrified to be seen with you."

Bulma's nostrils flared. She took a single step towards the woman, whose eyes, to Bulma's delight, widened fractionally. "You're right. Look at me. Underneath this jumpsuit I'm wearing high waisted briefs and my rattiest bra," Bulma admitted. "But you wouldn't believe the things Vegeta has done to me while wearing them," Bulma sneered as the woman's face crumpled with anger. "I don't know why you're here or who you're supposed to be meeting, but you've got ten seconds to get out of my shop before I show you just how low class I can be."

"Prove it." The woman smirked cuttingly. "I can't wait to slap you with an assault charge."

Her eyes widened as Bulma pushed up her sleeves.

"Look, I was just testing you. Honest." The woman held her hands up placatingly. "I'm Vegeta's friend. I have a sick sense of humor. That's one of the reasons we get along."

Bulma didn't believe it for a second.

"Honestly, I don't think Vegeta deserves you. You're a nice, hard working woman, but Vegeta…." She smiled as if they were sharing a joke. "Well, he's a total asshole. And a total slut. I mean, am I right?" The woman laughed without humor. It was a repugnant sound. "I mean, when we were dating, I can't tell you how many women he slept around with…."

Bulma's eyes widened. "You're a crazy ex!" It was all clear now. "You're just a bat shit crazy ex."

"Oh, I wouldn't say 'ex.' Vegeta and I never dated. We just screwed." She smiled sweetly. "Does he do that thing where he rubs your clit while he's fucking you from behind? I always loved that."

Steam erupted from Bulma's ears.

Bulma could deal with the nasty stuff spewing from the woman's mouth. She could endure the name calling and the insinuations. They were child's games. That this woman thought she could come into  _her_  shop and insult  _Vegeta_ , however, had Bulma tittering on a precipice.

She was barely aware when the bell rang and Vegeta walked past them swiftly, setting his briefcase on the front desk. "Sorry I'm late. I got held up in traffic." He turned to the women, and stiffened. And saw quite clearly that he was standing amidst an explosion waiting to happen.

Vegeta glowered at the woman in the pantsuit. "Fasha," he warned.

"Hi, Veggie." She winked at him. "So, is this thing your new girlfriend?" She pointed at Bulma.

"Do you know this woman?" Bulma snarled, looking at Vegeta with disbelief.

Vegeta scowled. "Fasha."

"I was just testing her." Fasha shrugged. "Just having fun. I meant no harm."

"Go home." Vegeta said decisively.

"Oh, Vegeta, don't take it so serious, I was just teasing the girl."

"Go home. Don't come back. We no longer need you. You're relieved of any obligation to us."

Fasha's eyes got wide. "Look, I'm sorry—"

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." Vegeta covered the distance between he and Bulma.

Bulma's fists were balled at her hips, but she felt more in control with Vegeta by her side.

"Look," Fasha said apologetically, holding out her hands, "I'll go back to the hotel. Let's meet for drinks tonight, shall we? Guess I just needed to vent a little," she simpered, shrugging. "We'll get started the right way this time, pretend this whole thing never happened."

"If I had to have drinks with you I'm afraid I'd have to knock your teeth down your throat first," Bulma snapped. "Now get out of my shop."

Fasha's mouth opened and closed, and then she backpedalled. "I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot—"

Bulma stepped forward once more. "Get the hell out of here before I show you just how undaunted when threatened with an assault charge someone like  _me_  can be."

Fasha pivoted and threw the door open, and they watched her hustle across the gravel lot in her heels.

Bulma grit her teeth as the woman stepped into her car.

Bitch didn't even drive an import.

Bulma whipped around. "You wanna tell me exactly what all that was about?"

Vegeta's eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

Bulma couldn't help it. She was losing her cool. She began pacing frantically, walking behind her desk and grabbing for her pack of cigarettes. She lit one and blew smoke angrily. "Is she an ex of yours?"

He scowled. "We never dated."

"But slept together, evidently," Bulma retorted sarcastically. "She let me know just what her favorite sexual positions with you were before she asked me if you were still impressing all the ladies with them. Have you got something to say for yourself? Why the fuck was she here?"

It looked like Vegeta truly didn't know what to say. Bulma pinched the cigarette between her mouth and inhaled hard before flicking it across the room.

She strode up to him and jabbed him hard in the chest. "Look here, buddy. You need to tell me now and right now if we are a thing. Are we dating? Are we boyfriend and girlfriend? How serious is this? Because I'm not dealing with crazy, toxic ex's, or, or past fuck buddies, unless I know exactly where I stand."

Bulma exhaled hard and glared up at him. Though he was working to maintain control, his face was drawn and unsettled.

"I thought I told you what I wanted when we, you know." His cheeks reddened lightly, and he frowned deeply in frustration with himself. "When we made up," he finished sheepishly.

"Tell me what?" Her head cocked sarcastically. "Tell me that I drove you crazy? Sure. Tell me that you desired me? Checked it off the list. But where we stand? Whether or not I am just your booty call? I mean, I thought there was something more to this, but the fact that you only spend time with me when you want something specifically from me has me wondering!"

Bulma didn't understand why she was so angry, but she was. She was livid. She was tired of feeling second to all.

"Obviously I give a damn." He raised his voice. "Why else would I waste my time with you, unless I liked your company?"

"Define 'company,'" she said dryly.

"You wound me," he replied mockingly.

"She said you two dated, and you cheated on her. Is that true?"

"We never dated," he snarled. "This isn't something I feel is courteous or appropriate to talk with you about."

"Appropriate?" Bulma laughed loudly. "I've just been notified of how inappropriate the fact of my existence is relative to yours. I think I can handle it."

"We…had a thing…once or twice. That's it." Vegeta glared at the wall behind her, searching for the shreds of his self-control. "She's just trying to mess with you."

"And did you sleep with other women while you were with her?"

Vegeta's face hardened. "Fasha and I were never committed."

Bulma laughed harshly. "So you  _were_  a playboy."

"There was a time when I made perfectly reasonable decisions and was a free man, yes," he countered.

"Are you someone who sleeps around a lot? Are you attracted to crazy women or something? Tell me, am I novel or exotic to you? Am I one type in a whole retinue of women that you can now check off your list?" Bulma stepped backwards, throwing her arms out wide. "Because I'm wondering how on earth I could deserve you. I mean, I'm lucky to have bagged you, right? I should be grateful someone as special as you wants to muck around in the dirt with me. Am I right?"

"No, goddamnet!" He yelled.

"Then why would you have ever bothered with someone like her, if you and that…that slimy woman weren't compatible in some way?" Bulma held her hands out. "I get it. She was baiting me. That was her game all along, it was grossly apparent, and I maintain a healthy amount of skepticism for everything that came out of her mouth." Her voice broke. "But all I can think now is that you must have found something valuable about her to have any kind of relationship with her, which makes me wonder about the kind of person you are, which makes me wonder if that's why you spend all your time working, because I'm not as important to you as your ambition."

Vegeta's fists balled at his hips, and he looked torn between several emotions, one which was clearly winning, for better or for worse: Indignation.

"What do you want from me? Do you want me to admit she's a terrible person? Fine! That's no surprise, that's evident to us all!" Vegeta snarled and began pacing. "I had hired her to work for the new firm because she has outstanding qualifications in our field and we worked together in the Navy. I trusted her to have complete mastery over the position I was offering her. I invited her here to your shop before we'd even spoke in person because I wanted her to know that I was in a committed relationship! Goddamnet!" He looked mad enough to hit something. He was not accustomed to being wrong or to being scolded. "Fasha feeds on drama. I thought I'd introduce you two and I'd prevent any from happening." He cursed and turned away from her. "I should have never taken I-80," he grumbled, running his hand down his face. "Fucking traffic. I could have been here earlier."

Bulma stared at him with clenched teeth and watery eyes. " _Are_  you in a committed relationship?" He looked up at her, and she shifted, tightening the arms around her chest. "Well,  _are_  you?"

They regarded each other for a moment in tense silence.

Vegeta quickly breached the distance between them and drew her close, despite her stiffness.

"Fasha is a bitch," he rasped, "but she's highly organized and, believe it or not, provides excellent customer service. I thought she would be an asset to the firm. Inviting her here was a mistake on my part. If she can't spend a day in West City without causing strife in my personal life, then she doesn't need to belong in my work life."

Bulma's fists balled up against his chest and she looked up at him with barely restrained ire. "You're an idiot," she said, and Vegeta glanced at her moodily. "I'm glad you can admit that."

He grunted, disagreeing.

She pulled his face down to hers, her brows knitted with frustration. "Vegeta, why me? How do we, we fit together? I don't understand. I'm not a swanky white collar career woman, I'm not tall and thin and blonde or fashionable, I don't have it all together, I'm not some lawyer's child-bearing trophy wife.…" She looked at him with grief in her eyes. "I want to hear it from your lips. If you want me, then you have to take all of me. Because I can't do this anymore without knowing what I am to you. I think I'm falling for you! I can't do this anymore unless we're exclusive. I can't just be your friend with benefits. I want to be more than that."

She disengaged from his arms and backed away from him, concerned for the first time that she'd crossed some boundary.  _Bull_ , some voice chided within her.  _I have a right to know._ Without giving it any thought she strode behind the desk and grabbed her backpack from the locker in her office. She felt Vegeta's eyes on her.

"Look," she said, coming to a halt on her way to the door, unable to meet his eyes. "I'm closing up shop for the day. I can't work like this. I'll give you some time to think on it. It's obviously not something to make a decision about flippantly—"

"What's to think about?" He growled.

She stalled.

"Would you just…would you hold on a minute?" He barked.

She opened her mouth to inform him of his profound talent at being thickheaded when he interrupted her. "I want Bulma. Just Bulma. There hasn't been a girl in years and there hasn't been a girl like you ever. Can we move on already?" He tried to retain some dignity, standing there upright, scowling at the floor.

"No. No, we can't," she murmured, walking over to him. "Vegeta no'Ouji, are you saying you want to be my boyfriend?" She stopped in front of him.

He rolled his eyes, sulking. "We're not teenagers."

"No, we're not," she agreed, "we're adults. And I need to know if you, another adult, wants to see me…exclusively…" She murmured from below him, before taking a deep breath and holding it.

He looked into her bright eyes before stuffing his hands into her curls, holding her head straight. "Yes! For cripe's sakes. Why else would I give a shit about another woman coming to grips with my relationship with you before I'd even hired her?"

"Because you like this booty," Bulma replied saucily. "And you don't want to lose it."

"Please," he muttered, eyes sliding to the corners.

"Vegeta," she said commandingly, "I will fight a bitch for you." She looked up at him firmly. "I will fuck you in the middle of the street on a Saturday night and then introduce you to my mother. I'll work on your Ghia and do my best not to make a mess of your kitchen in the mornings when I'm half-awake. I'll give you your space because I know your job means a lot to you," she continued softly, "but I just need to know that those things, that my feelings, will be reciprocated, and my own eccentricities respected." They stared at one another.

"Move in with me," he resolved.

Bulma's eyebrows furrowed. "What? That's a terrible idea. You're a neat freak, and I'm a mess—"

"Shut up," he said, and kissed her hard on the mouth. Her knees went weak with it. "Are you still closing up?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to take you home with me. Now."

"Right now? It's not even noon."

"Right now. And then we'll order out for dinner. And we won't get out of bed until morning." His voice had turned husky and he was kissing her over and over again.

"Is that right?" He was making her backpedal towards the front door, and without being able to turn her head—caught between his lips and his hands clutching her—she clumsily reached out and switched the open sign to closed before he pushed her out the door.

He dipped his tongue into her mouth and clutched her breathlessly to him. Her tongue fought back, and he grabbed it lightly with his teeth before sucking on it. "You animal," she whispered.

"I'll show you animal," he rumbled, unzipping her jumpsuit to her belly and pawing at her breasts through her ragged bra.

A throat cleared to their right, and they both glanced over, where the guy with the BMW from earlier stood, jingling his keys at them impatiently. "Hey, can I get some help here?"

"No," Vegeta growled, before pushing Bulma the rest of the way against his Ghia, kissing her frantically while searching for the door handle.

* * *

They didn't get far.

They drove with the windows down, down the highway and off the exit ramp into the upper class neighborhood he resided in, the wind blowing their hair around, the sun on their skin.

She leaned over and left bruises on his neck with her mouth as they pulled into the complex.

He stomped on the brakes after swerving into the garage. Grabbing the front of her jumpsuit, he pulled her into his lap and kissed her scorchingly. He yanked her jumpsuit down over her shoulders and mouthed her breasts through the worn fabric of her bra. When she began complaining about the steering wheel biting into her back, they walked as inconspicuously as they could down the sidewalk and up the stairs to his condo. She grabbed for his hand, and he let her.

Just as he inserted the key into the doorknob and Bulma grabbed his hard bulge from behind playfully, the door across the deck opened. Vegeta's neighbor stepped out, waving hello to them both. Bulma smiled cheerily and waved, but Vegeta pulled her inside without looking at him, slamming the door.

They made it about halfway through the living room before he'd stripped her of her jumpsuit, but then there was the problem with her boots. She fell onto the couch laughing and unlaced them patiently, but once they were unlaced and she was trying unsuccessfully to pry them off her heels with her toes, Vegeta ripped them off her feet.

He inserted himself between her legs domineeringly and pulled her towards him by the hips, causing her to fall onto her back breathlessly.

She could hear dogs barking and the distant screams of children from the park across the street as Vegeta's mouth sucked at her clit with abandon until she shrieked. He picked her languid body up and she threw her legs around his hips, making his way toward his bedroom but falling into the hallway wall as she ground against him, giggling. His mouth found purchase on her neck, her collar, the texture of the wall biting into her bare back, and then he was pulling her hair to angle her head so that he could suck at her jaw. She inhaled raggedly, and he seemed to remember what he had been doing. Somehow they made it into his room.

The bed frame knocked against the wall roughly; the sheets wound around Bulma's legs until she was stuck in them and Vegeta ripped them off the bed with impatience; Bulma's head dangled off the bed as she groaned out louder and louder. "I'm cumming!" She cried without restraint, and his mouth found hers, kissing her deep as she clutched his shoulders and her body clenched around his hard length forcefully. Vegeta cried out and fell, catching himself on his palms on either side of her head. She wound her fingers in his hair, breathing heavily, and pulled him down to her, kissing him delicately, softly, sweetly, until Vegeta leaned over, snatched the blanket from off the floor, tossed it over them and settled himself against her. She was already falling asleep.

* * *

It was late when she heard the knock on the door. The sun was halfway through its slow descent into the horizon, and Bulma watched it wash the kitchen cabinets in its amber glow. With the second knock, she assumed Vegeta had forgotten his keys and locked himself out, and she dragged her feet across the floor to the front door. Without thinking, she opened the front door wearing Vegeta's robe.

And came face to face with Goku.

"Goku!" Bulma clutched the front of her robe closed.

"Bulma?" Goku looked nervous and clammy.

"Goku," Bulma said, finding her voice. "What the hell are you doing here?" She looked around in paranoia. "I love you to death, but I'm going to need you to get out of here. Vegeta isn't very happy with you," she finished wistfully.

"Is he here?" Goku peered over her. After all, he was much taller than she was.

"No, he ran to grab something to eat."

"Will he be back soon?"

"I must, again, express my disapproval of you talking to him." Bulma leaned against the doorway and looked at her friend with concern. "He's not ready to talk, Goku," she reminded him sadly.

Goku looked torn. His mouth slanted. "Well, when he comes back, can you just tell him I'll be here when he's ready?"

"Oh, Goku. You are too nice." Bulma smiled up at him affectionately, and Goku managed to return it somewhat.

Bulma's face collapsed into a frown abruptly. "Goku, why are you making Chi Chi miserable?"

He looked accosted. "What?" His brows knit with confusion. "I'm doing no such thing."

"I thought you loved her. Do you love her?" Bulma squinted at him. "I don't know if you do. Enough."

"What are you talking about?" He wailed.

"Why are you breaking her heart!" Bulma threw her hands up in the air and then thought better of it, pulling the chest closed on the robe again.

"I have no idea what you're—"

She grabbed him by his work shirt and pulled him close. "Goku, you are such a dork. Chi Chi is four months pregnant and you haven't even popped the question yet! For shame!"

Goku blanched. "What?" He said weakly.

"Chi Chi thinks you don't love her enough to make this thing between you official. I mean, after all, you two have started a family together. Don't make me disappointed, Goku." She tugged on his shirt, dragging him further down so he was looking into her eyes. "I will be very, very upset if you don't go get a ring soon and propose to my best friend."

"I didn't know—"

They both turned their heads when they felt someone's presence.

Vegeta stood at the head of the stairs, a takeout bag in hand, glaring daggers at Goku.

Goku stood up abruptly, smoothing down his shirt. Bulma helped him, patting his chest supportively.

"Bye, Goku," she said winsomely.

Goku made his way carefully around Vegeta, as Vegeta walked forward, eyes fixed on Goku, radiating hostility. Goku opened his mouth to speak to Vegeta, thought better of it, and hustled down the stairs.

He redirected his gaze to Bulma, fixing her with a disapproving look. "I bring you food, and this is how you repay me?"

She smiled as he walked in. "Ah, the sweet smell of lo mein." She closed the front door and followed him into the kitchen. He reached into the paper bag and threw a bag of almond cookies onto the table. "Ooh, cookies! A man after my own heart." She beamed at him, and he grunted.

"What did that dope want? How could he dare to show his face at my doorstep?"

"Vegeta, honey," she began, popping an egg roll into her mouth, "Goku isn't afraid of  _you_. He's afraid of losing you as a friend."

"Don't get soft on me. I have no stomach for it today."

He laid their carryout boxes out in front of them and tossed a fork in her direction.

"He just wanted to talk to you. I told him it might not be a good idea right now, so he just asked me to tell you that he's ready to talk when you are."

Vegeta snorted like that was really funny, digging into his noodles.

"I won't have you using my friend as a punching bag," she threatened, and he rolled his eyes. She shoved a fork full of noodles into her mouth. "You know," she commented slyly, "you're like estranged lovers, a little bit." She glanced up at him from a mouthful of noodles. Vegeta glared at her, and she smiled, dangling noodles.

"If you care for him so much, why were you threatening him when I walked up?"

Bulma dug around in her box looking for a baby corn, and upon finding it, slid it off her fork with her teeth and chewed. "Because he hasn't asked Chi Chi to marry him yet and it's making her crazy." Bulma swallowed and reached for a napkin. "She's had morning sickness for months and he's been completely oblivious to it, bless her heart. When she finally told him it was because she's pregnant, he pretty much shrugged and said, 'okay.'" She crossed her eyes, an exaggerated imitation of Goku. "He is completely devoid of relationship skills sometimes," she groused.

Bulma stopped chewing and looked up, meeting Vegeta's gaze. "Whoops. That's supposed to be confidential."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed.

"She's pregnant?"

"Yes?" Bulma answered uncertainly.

Vegeta stared down at his noodles.

"That's why he took the job, Vegeta," she answered softly. "To take care of his family." Half right, but whatever. It got the point across.

"Oh, shove it," Vegeta grumbled, but not harshly. He looked back up at her intensely. "That's why you were standing outside half-naked with his shirt in your fist?"

Bulma stared, and then a grin blossomed on her face. "You're jealous," she accused him playfully.

He snorted and made himself busy with his dinner.

"Actually, I was trying to threaten him. I told him if he didn't propose to her soon I was going to knock his block off."

She glanced up to gauge his reaction and found him grinning at her. It was so rare an expression from him, and so infectious, that it made her smile, too.

"A woman after my own heart."


	15. Chapter 15

Goku was miserable.

All he wanted in life, he could count on one hand.

Food. A comfy place to sleep. A friendly competition. Chi Chi.

At the moment, he wasn't getting any of it.

He dug his palms into his eyes and groaned. "Raditz, will you make me some pizza rolls? I'm hungry."

Raditz lifted the pillow he'd smashed into his own face up to peer at him. Raditz shook his head with disdain. He dropped the pillow back onto his face. "No," came his muffled reply.

Goku was a little embarrassed by the sound that escaped from his throat.

He didn't know exactly what the problem was, but whatever he'd done, it had been  _bad_.

He'd come home Tuesday night from work with only one thing on his mind: dinner. It had been a long,  _long_  day. His father had grilled him on the firm's clients all day, and he'd filled out so much paperwork he was sure he'd be dreaming of signing his name all night.

It had gone well the first few minutes. He'd walked in, set his suit jacket over the chair and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. He'd moseyed up to the stove and peeked under the lid of the dutch oven, inhaling the aroma of stew with boyish delight. He'd felt Chi Chi sidle up beside him. She'd asked him how his day went. And then he said it: that which should never be said to one's pregnant lady, ever.

"Wow, this smells good! Nothing is better than stew after a long day at work."

_nothing is better than stew_

_nothing is better than stew_

nothing _is better than stew_

Chi Chi had immediately dissolved into tears, told him she couldn't stand to look at him anymore and informed him that he could come back when he figured out his ass from his head. She'd pushed him back out the front door before he'd realized what was going on and thrown his suit jacket in his face.

Goku had been left standing outside the door in complete bewilderment.

He'd knocked a few times, apologizing through the door, and received no response. He'd even come back later that night in hopes she'd cooled off. She'd locked it, but he'd left his house keys on the table, and he didn't want to chance getting the cops called on him for sleeping in the hallway of their apartment building.

Now he was stuck sleeping at Raditz' and Nappa's until…until what? He'd already messaged her, assuring her that of  _course_  he didn't hold stew in higher regard than his  _girlfriend_. That had just earned him a slap on the head from Raditz, who she'd politely asked in a text to hit him.

Goku was miserable, and he was grasping at straws trying to figure out what Chi Chi wanted from him in apology.

After all, he wouldn't be eating real food until he did, or snuggling up to her. Sometimes she did this thing where she twirled his hair around her fingers and scratched his scalp until he fell asleep. He needed that  _back_.

Goku made another sad sigh and stared up at the ceiling, tummy rumbling.

"You're an idiot, you know."

Goku turned towards Raditz, who hadn't moved from under the pillow but so far failed to suffocate.

Goku went back to sulking at the ceiling. "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all."

"Is there a reason you've been avoiding popping the question?" Raditz asked with incredulity, question muffled from under the pillow. "Are you too afraid to commit, are you waiting for another woman to come along? What is it?"

Goku startled. "No," he issued defensively. "Not at all. Why?"

Slowly, Raditz turned his head toward Goku, prying the pillow from his face just enough to shoot his brother a dirty look. "Then why not just seal the deal? I mean, it's a nice trade off: Chi Chi's hot, she cooks for you and cleans up after you, she makes good money. I like my women with a little less cahones, you know what I'm sayin', but I don't shoot for the stars. I go for the gals whose life goal is to become a stripper and maybe get a boob job, and that's right where I wanna be." Raditz paused. "And, frankly," he added wistfully, "I'm just not the marryin' type."

Raditz waited for Goku to agree.

But Goku just stared at him with confusion.

"Didn't Bulma just talk to you about this? What's so hard to understand?" Raditz dropped the pillow onto his face again. "Jeez, you're as dense as a sponge sometimes."

"Sponges aren't dense, they're porous."

"What are you, an expert in sponges? What—did you go to oceanography school in the last five minutes?"

Goku sighed, absently rubbing his stomach. "Chi Chi wouldn't be so angry with me just because she wanted to get married. That's an awfully big step. I don't know why you and Bulma keep bringing it up. I mean, it's not a big deal to her. She's barely talked about it."

"Do I need to call Nappa in to sock you in the stomach? I think you need to be socked in the stomach. Helps clear the mind. Like ginseng."

"I just don't see what all the fuss is about it!" Goku raised his voice, but his hunger made it much more petulant than he'd have liked. "She's just…having a hard time at work or something. Cheech always gets a little overreactive when she's stressed at work. This isn't about her and I. Life's problems aren't just solved by getting married, you know. And what's the rush, anyway?" Goku buried his hand in his hair in mounting exasperation. "She wouldn't want to just get married all the sudden without talking to me about it. That's the last thing on both our minds right now. I barely have any time to even breathe since the promotion, and she's been busy with…other things," Goku lectured his brother. "Plus, Chi Chi would never blackmail me into proposing to her. She's above all that. She'd never kick me out just to get something she wanted. She would never  _force_  me to do something so significant and meaningful ooOooOohhhhhh."

"Do you get it now? You haven't given her many options, here."

They stared up at the ceiling for a moment in silence.

Goku picked through the catalog of her actions in the last few months in his mind. "What if that's not it? What if she's just hangry?"

"Hangry?"

"When you're so hungry you get angry and blow your top at every little thing."

"Tch. Goku!"

"What if she says no?" Goku's voice was suddenly strained.

"NAPPA!"

"No! No! Fine! I'll go look at rings right now, if that's all it is." Goku stood and braced himself as Nappa's steps shook the house.

Nappa barreled into the living room. "What?"

"Oh, god, Nappa." Raditz squeezed his eyes shut and buried his head into his pillow with force. "Put some clothes on."

Goku covered his eyes and grabbed blindly for his suit jacket. "I've never wanted to see Chi Chi so badly in my life." Goku threw his suit jacket over his head and felt for the front door.

Raditz palmed his eyes. "Her beautiful, angry face would surely erase this horrifying image I have every time I shut my eyes."

"What?" Nappa asked, throwing his arms up in a gesture of confusion, making his naked parts jiggle with the effort.

"Jeez, you're as dense as a sponge sometimes," Raditz mumbled.

"That doesn't even make sense," Goku yelled as he gave Nappa a wide berth on his rush out the door.

"You know what doesn't make sense? Why you don't just pop the question to a woman you wanna marry anyway!"

The door slammed behind him.

"So did Goku finally get it?" Nappa's deep, rough voice asked with a touch of excitement. "Is he going to pop the question? I love weddings."

"Yeah, finally." Raditz gestured with his arms dramatically from under the pillow. "I've read enough En Touché Magazine," Raditz pried the pillow from his face, "and West City Cosmopolitan to know when a lady is sending those signals OH GOD NAPPA." Raditz smashed the pillow into his face with enough force to wrap it around his ears. "Put some clothes on. By Kami I'm too hungover for this."

Nappa turned and grumbled his way back into his room, butt cheeks jiggling with every heavy step.

* * *

Bulma sighed into her ledger, rubbed her temples, and closed it as the bell to the front door rang. She glanced up, tossing the book under the cash register.

"Something I can help you with?"

The boy looked around the shop nervously. He smiled at her—grimaced more like it, in his nervousness—and wrung his hat in his hands.

"Uh, hi there. I was just wondering if you were hiring?"

Bulma stared at him.

She'd never had anyone ask for a job before.

"Well, there," she began, smiling cheekily, making him squirm. "Maybe I am. Things are pretty crazy around here, and they don't seem to be slowing down." She sighed. "Do you have a resume? Do you come recommended?"

She wasn't expecting much, but the boy pulled out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket, handing it to her carefully. She unfolded it, lips thin with concentration, and scanned it. Her eyes widened a bit. "Woo, doggy. This much under your belt already?"

"Just a few years at Bob's VWs," he dismissed. "I'm just their shop bitch." His eyes widened. "Excuse my language, ma'am."

She snorted, looking down again at his resume. "Hey, kid, I curse like a sailor. Just so long as you can sling a wrench occasionally and write 'yes' and 'no' legibly on paperwork. You know what, cross that. You don't need to write legibly. My father writes in hieroglyphs, I swear. I can probably decipher it." She handed him back his resume, smiling up at him. "You're lucky I'm in a position to you help out. Can you tell me why you'd leave a dealership to work at this hole in the wall, though?"

He shrugged, hesitant to meet her eyes. "There's not a lot of room to grow there. I just, I'm not in this for the money, and that's all it is to them dealership guys. I was hoping a smaller shop would be more interesting." He looked at his feet. "Plus, everyone who's anyone knows your shop is where it's at."

Bulma could have flew out of her seat with joy.

"Show me that you're reliable by showing up tomorrow at eight and I'll let you go by noon. A week of that, and if you seem solid, I'll hire you on full time. How's that sound?"

The boy's face brightened and he straightened. "Great! That's great!"

"Awesome! Come back tomorrow and show me what you got, um…" She glanced at the piece of paper. "Peasuke?"

"Suke. My friends call me Suke, ma'am."

Bulma smiled warmly at him. "Show me what you got tomorrow."

"Radical. Radical." The kid walked backwards out of the shop. "Thank you so much. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock."

As he opened the door, he stumbled over something behind him and was met with a growl. The boy startled and scuffled backwards, apologizing. Vegeta glowered and shut the door abruptly behind him.

Bulma smiled at him and picked up the black phone beside her register. "That kid is my new shop help. Don't be too scary, okay?"

Vegeta's eyebrow rose. "You hired that kid? Is he even out of diapers?"

"I need all the help I can get around here, and he comes quite qualified for an errand boy and for only being nineteen. He's won all sorts of awards. Yeah, hi there, Randy? Hey there. I need you to do something for me. I need two carburetors for a '69 Bug and I need them by tomorrow afternoon. Is that something you can swing?" She felt Vegeta tug her shirt up and yank her bra down, freeing her breasts, and she readjusted the phone to give him access. "Yes. Yep. Two carbs. The carbs your guy brought over Tuesday are the wrong size. Mmhmm. Yep. Alright." She squirmed as Vegeta squeezed them together and nuzzled her neck. "Yeah," she started to reply weakly. "See you tomorrow then. Vegeta," she scolded before she'd even hung up.

"Mmm," he said against her ear, taking selfish pleasure in how hard he'd made her nipples, how heavy and round her breasts were in his hands. "Are you done yet?" He complained.

"Alllllmost," she sang, shuffling papers by the register and stacking them on the side. "I just have to clean up and then I can lock up."

He twisted her around on the stool and put himself between her legs, rocking his hips against her. Her eyes widened. "Why clean up when you're just going to get dirty again?" He purred.

"Very funny, buddy," she chided. "Except I don't want to be here anymore. My head is spinning from all this work." She pushed against his chest gently, and he straightened with a sigh.

She strode across the shop to her garage, bending to pick up any extra tools and bolts—the biggest ones, anyway, as the small ones were a war she'd never win—and threw them onto the counters and tool boxes that lined the shop walls. When she'd used the shop broom to sweep out any lingering disintegrated gaskets and the layers of dirt that accumulated on cars over the years, she shut the garage door and shoved the lock in.

"Any luck finding a receptionist?" She grabbed her backpack from her office and threw on a jacket over her 'B's Dubs' shirt, following Vegeta as he led the way out of the shop.

He growled. "No," he sighed, massaging his temples, fighting the headache that had persisted for a week now. "None of them are what I'm looking for."

Bulma cocked an eyebrow at him as she locked the door. "Are they under qualified, or are you scaring them before they can even get out a hello?" Vegeta snarled under his breath. "I thought so." She shoved her hand between his arm and his side, squeezing his bicep, and walked beside him quietly.

"Miss Bulma."

Bulma peered around Vegeta and saw her neighbor waving at her, his dog jumping into the back of his pick up as he opened the drivers side door. She waved back. "How are you doing tonight?"

"Ah, well, I'm doing good. You?" He inclined his hat guardedly. "Mr. no'Ouji."

Vegeta nodded back respectfully.

"I'm great! Goodnight! Give your wife a squeeze for me!"

"'Night, Miss Briefs."

Her neighbor's truck pulled out of his parking lot with the grumble of gravel, and a smile curled on Bulma's face. "Tell me," she said, putting herself in front of Vegeta as they reached his Ghia, leaning against his fender. "Are you a betting kind of man?"

Vegeta looked taken aback. His thick eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"I saidddd," Bulma drawled, pulling him in by his belt loops, "are you a gambling man, Mr. no'Ouji?"

Vegeta smirk grew sinisterly. "Just what are we betting on?"

Bulma's eyes rolled up playfully. "Just how good at Yahtzee are you?"

His face fell. "Yahtzee," he deadpanned.

"Strip yahtzee," she cooed into his mouth.

"That sounds more appetizing." He looked down at his watch. "There's some work I need to do after we get done."

Bulma's face fell. "Always with the work, huh."

Vegeta didn't blink. "Yes," he answered, automatically.

She sighed. "Why don't you get your ass in the car, pal, and we'll play truth or dare until we get to your place, hm? See if you can get all my clothes off before we get there, hm?" She winked, and he opened the car door for her, letting her slide in.

* * *

"What do you want, Fasha," Raditz growled, walking down the street with one hand in his pocket, the other clutching a coffee.

"What, we can't catch up for old times sake?" She huffed beside him as she tried to match his pace.

"I have nothing I want to say to you." Raditz continued walking with his eyes forward.

"Look, I know there's hard feelings between us with Melanie—"

He laughed harshly. "Yeah, there is." Raditz tried to curb the anger in his voice. He didn't want to seem vulnerable in front of Fasha, so he kept walking. His stride was long because he was tall, but she, unfortunately, kept up.

"I'm sorry it all happened, Raditz. We were different people back then—"

"Yeah, I still had a heart, but you were the same psycho bitch. You still got that goin' for ya, don't you?" He could hardly bear to look at her. "Don't think Vegeta didn't tell me about the shit you pulled with Bulma. Bulma's my friend, too, you know," he snapped, looking at her with disgust. "Vegeta made sure to warn me you were up to trouble. Don't think I don't know you're up to your old shit."

"Oh, come on, Raditz," she cajoled. "I was just seeing what the girl was made of."

"She's made of screwdrivers and uppercuts and a helluva lot more heart than you." He chewed the straw of his iced latte angrily.

"Maybe she'd be willing to share," Fasha joked. "I wish you guys would just give me a chance."

Raditz stopped abruptly. "Is there some reason you're still here?" He looked down at her with very limited patience.

"I, I just wanted to see what you were up to—"

"Getting along fine without you. Picking up the pieces of my life." Raditz moved to walk off, but pivoted. "No. You know what? Tell me, how good did it feel when you dumped Melanie like a sack of potatoes? After filling her head up with all that shit about how I was cheating on her and playing her knight in shining armor?" Fasha's eyes widened. "And then, a few days later, what do I see but a phone call from you, letting me know that I could have your sloppy seconds? Was that your crowning fucking achievement? To get back at me just because I turned you down one night?"

They stared at one another as people walked around them on the sidewalk. It was late evening in the city square, couples holding hands giving the arguing pair wide berth, but Raditz ignored them.

"But I never got a chance, did I? Melanie got in the car wreck that weekend. I never even got a fucking chance."

"Raditz, I'm sorry. But that was a very long time ago," she amended, shaking her head. "We were young, and dumb."

She still had the same infuriating habit of lying through her teeth. He was glad Vegeta had cut her loose from the firm. He knew Vegeta thought he could keep her under control, but as soon as she'd proven him wrong, despite losing face, he'd cut her loose. If even Vegeta could see that the means didn't justify the ends, she had no power over them anymore. Not Vegeta, and not him.

"Fasha, I don't give a shit whether you live or you die, although I'd prefer it if you were dead," Raditz reassured her bitingly. " Just so long as you are far, far away from me and my friends."

He glared down at her until she turned, face ashen, and walked away with her lips pressed together. Raditz didn't move, just watched her go with no emotion but an old emptiness twisting in his gut.

It wasn't until someone bumped into him and insulted his intelligence that he came to. He sighed and pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket, taking in the buildings around him as he waited for the phone on the other end to pick up.

The call went to voicemail. "We're going to start to go to singles meet ups," he yelled abruptly into Nappa's voicemail. "Fuck this strippers noise. We need real girlfriends."

Raditz stomped up the nearest steps, pocketing his phone, and spilled inside without awareness, thoughts overlaid with confusion like the static on an old television.

He bumped into something in his blind rush and righted it automatically.

It was soft.

"Sorry," he muttered, before his eyes widened.

It was a woman.

She smiled at him shyly.

Raditz noisily sipped the remainder of his iced latte through his straw before smiling rakishly.

* * *

Bulma was taking a quick shower when she heard the noise. She stilled, listening over the water. Instinctually, she shut it off, and craned her neck to hear. She grabbed for her toothbrush distractedly, squeezing toothpaste out haphazardly over the bristles. There it was again.

She padded out of Vegeta's bathroom quietly, grabbing for the closest thing in sight, his discarded work shirt, and slipping her arms in the sleeves. She shoved the long sleeves up to her elbows and cocked her head. It was coming from the other side of the condo. Buttoning a couple of the buttons at the bust impatiently, she slid through the dark of Vegeta's room to reach into her backpack, crouching and leaning up against his dresser. Her hand found the handgun without much trouble, and she slid the magazine into the butt decisively.

She crept along the hall, and that's when she heard it—a definitive crack, and then glass shattering.

Bulma crouched at the doorway where Vegeta's hallway met the living area. It was coming from the room Vegeta used as a gym, just down the hall.

She strode down the hall.

Just as boots scuffled on the windowsill, she flipped the light on in the room and fired.

The gun discharging made her ears ring and the fire from the barrel caused her to squint; but the intruder was blinded enough when she'd turned the light on that he'd lost his balance and fallen backwards—

just enough for the bullet to miss him. She recocked with her palm swiftly and fired again before falling to the floor and rolling toward the window, crouching defensively below it. After a moment, she peeked her head over the windowsill.

Just a long, bare stretch of lawn, and glass shards catching the light of the moon.

"What the fuckkk," she whispered, crawling out of the room on her hands and knees—just to be safe—and made her way quickly to her cell phone. It didn't take her but a second to call the police and a handful more for them to arrive.

* * *

By the time Vegeta walked in the door, the cops were just finishing up with their notes.

No one noticed Vegeta standing in the doorway, eyes wide with astonishment.

His front door was ajar, all his lights were on, and there stood Bulma, clad only in his white button down, much smaller than the two cops she was speaking to. He contained a supremely irritated growl. All she had to do was bend over and she'd be exposed.

Vegeta dropped his suitcase and strode over. She turned his way, smiling wanly, and he noticed her knees and hands were bleeding.

Vegeta couldn't form thoughts. He looked around his house sharply. Something was growing in the pit of his belly.

"Mr. no'Ouji?" The two cops looked expectantly at him. One chewed his gum loudly. "You had a break in while you were away."

Vegeta turned his rage onto Bulma, who shot him a reassuring smile. He opened his mouth to say something. It took a few tries.

"Are you okay?" He managed roughly.

"Your wife—"

"Girlfriend," Bulma corrected the officer nonchalantly.

"Girlfriend, here, heard some noises from the front of the place and went to check it out."

Vegeta didn't realize he was gripping her arm, pinning her against his side, until he heard her squeak. For the first time, he noticed a handgun lying on his kitchen table.

His fists twitched. "Did they shoot at you?" He chomped out.

She shrugged. "I shot at them, actually. I don't know whether they were armed."

"Ms. Briefs, we've had your license to carry and gun registration checked out and you're good—"

"Of course," she said with some impatience.

"So the only thing we can do at this point is take the information you gave us, ma'am, and file a report. The fire department should be on their way to board up your window, Mr. no'Ouji, until you can have it replaced."

"Thank you gentleman." Bulma shook both of their hands in place of Vegeta, who busy with looking as if his head would explode with outrage any second now.

Only when the door closed behind them did he release his panicked fury on Bulma. His fists curled at his hips. "What the  _hell_  happened while I was gone!?"

Bulma stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "Well, little miss sunshine. I got out of the shower, and I heard something while I was brushing my teeth. Like a knocking. You know. Breaking in sounds."

He was tense, muscles straining. She flicked her hair out of her face. Her curly mane had air dried, and had become a frizzy mass invading her face. "I grabbed my gun from my bag," she gestured at the gun lying harmlessly on the kitchen table, "and confronted them at the window."

"You what?" Vegeta's head was about to spin off into space.

She frowned. "Vegeta, let's get this out of the way, shall we?" She placed her hand on her chest. "I was raised shooting. I got an Annie Oakley award when I was nine years old. I'm no stranger to a home invasion scenario. I was never in any danger."

He was about to tear his hair out.

He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. Lightly. But frantically. "You crazy woman, you could have been hurt!"

"Well, I wasn't. I mean, I guess I was a little. Once he fell out of the window and ran off, I low crawled out of the room just to be safe, since the light was on, and got a little scratched up on all the broken glass." She held her hands out, palms up. Vegeta's vision turned red. "But no big deal. I called the cops, they filed a report, made sure I carried legally, and that's it."

He stared at her through a field of red. "That's it," he repeated.

"Yep."

He snarled and strode away, leaving her in the kitchen, the fan spinning innocuously above her.

She frowned and followed him. He hadn't acted so stuffy and weird since they were just...well, uh, banging.

"Are you angry with me about something?" She asked, more than a little bewildered.

Vegeta ripped his shirt off, winging it into the hamper by the closet door. She couldn't help the little wave of pleasure she got from watching him walk toward her without it, all muscle, his pants sitting on the top of his defined hips.

Was she drooling? She wanted to demand that all of his pants sit as low from this point forward. She thought about it but figured, with much sadness, that now wasn't the time.

"I'm very angry." His nostrils flared.

"What on earth did I do!?" Her voice raised in defense.

"You are an idiot," he said through his teeth. He stared down at her with intensity, before turning to kick off his shoes and loosen his belt. "An idiot!"

"Excuse me?!" She startled, brows clashing together.

"What woman goes charging in to confront someone breaking into their home!"

"So, you're upset with me…and insulting my intelligence…because someone broke into your home." She looked at him like he was most definitely lacking anything upstairs.

"Yes!" He shouted.

"But I was carrying." She gestured to the heavy duty book bag she used in lieu of a purse. "No harm done."

His hands stilled on his belt. "Are you a maniac, woman!" He hollered.

"Are you?" She shouted back.

He snarled and walked out of the room.

She stared after him, perplexed.

"Vegeta." He didn't respond. Her face crumpled with concern. "Vegeta!"

She strode into the kitchen, where he was pouring himself a whiskey, neat, into a glass tumbler.

She grit her teeth in frustration. Was she that hard to deal with? "What would you have had me do different? It's not my fault someone tried to break into your home. I just did what I could to minimize the damage." She placed her hand on her chest passionately. "I am fully trained in home defense."

Vegeta's throat bobbed as he knocked back the whiskey in one full gulp, the liquor a smoky amber in the light over the oven. He poured himself another.

"This shouldn't have happened."

She gawked. "These things happen. All the time. You don't just, just plan a home invasion, or a car accident." She watched him carefully. "You can't control everything, Vegeta."

"Like hell I can't."

"You can't. In life, you just, roll with the punches," she argued, looking at him pleadingly. "I just don't understand. Would you have rather me wait on the bed until he walked in? Said 'howdy-do?' Gave him a little wave as he robbed you blind or—"

Vegeta's face tightened.

She threw her hands up in the air dramatically. "Why are you so upset?"

"Because you could have been hurt!" He hollered, slamming his fist on the counter, causing her to jump. "This is my safe place, and it failed you. You could have been hurt. You were." He snatched up her wrists, eyes burning.

"Hey, big guy," she began, reaching out to touch him. Instead she placed her hands on the counter to avoid looking as if she were pitying and making light of his feelings. "I did what I could. No harm done, except the trouble of having a new window installed. I'm fine."

He leaned on his elbows over his glass, staring at the black marble countertop, before downing it again and placing it in the sink angrily.

"Vegeta," she called, placing her hand on his bare back. He didn't respond. "Vegeta," she said sharply. He looked at her. She didn't see a man seeking to punish her for a break in, only a man who cared deeply but had no inkling how to show it without feeling foolish.

"I'm sorry." She exhaled through her nose.

She was surrendering, but not quite. Her eyes were dark blue in the warm light of the recessed kitchen lights. She searched his own, waiting for his response.

He understood she wasn't apologizing for defending herself. She was saying sorry because she felt bad that he was upset. It was probably all he'd get, but it was more than he expected, and he didn't know what he wanted from her anyway. He was a tangle of feelings and convictions and doubts, and it was making him insane, like loosing his footing and knowing in the few seconds of limbo that what awaited him was falling.

They both jumped when their was a knock on the door. She moved to answer it but he looked like he might implode if she did. "Stay here," he ground out as he went to answer it.

She let him have that.

Opening the door just revealed the firefighters, who informed him that it would only take a few minutes to board up his window from the outside.

Vegeta was already slamming the door closed, prowling around the house and inspecting each room carefully before checking each lock on the window. He then strode into his bedroom, leaving her to follow.

She entered his bedroom uncertainly.

He sat on the edge of the bed and toed off his shoes, peeling off his pants. His movements were jerky with anger.

Her voice came soft. "Would you like me to leave?" It quivered with touch of distress.

His head snapped up. She leaned against the doorjamb uneasily, a waif in his too large shirt.

What did he want from her? He couldn't say.

He rose from the bed and stalked towards her. He pulled her by the hand back to the bed, rolling her onto it with him so that she straddled atop him. She let out an "ooph" and held herself steady with a palm on his chest.

He swiftly undid the few buttons of her shirt in the dark and flicked it to the side so that he could view her in the moonlight. He ran his hands down her sides. Down her ribs, where her waist cinched, and then down the slope of her hips, where he gripped her possessively.

"Mine," he growled.

"Mine," she countered sensibly, grabbing at his half formed erection.

His eyes narrowed and glinted, the shrewdness of Vegeta deliberating.

There was something awfully sexy about his menacing visage below her, and his bare, smooth chest, a delicious shade of palest bronze in the moonlight. The shadows falling over his chiseled face, the corded muscles in his neck leading her gaze to the dips of his collar bone, begging for attention.

"What are you smiling about?" He complained gruffly.

She smiled wider and slid her palms over his pecs, groping him for a second and earning a little annoyed huff. She snickered softly and ran her palms up over his shoulders, wide and hard, and over his biceps, rounded and unforgiving.

"You're making me feel like a piece of meat," he griped beneath her, turning his head away. She giggled and leaned forward, her breasts brushing his chest as she kissed his brow, furrowed as ever with impatience, and his nose, straight and narrow, and his unforgiving jawline, which she bit lightly.

She kissed his impudent mouth and felt him begin to harden between her legs.

"Bulma," he rumbled, and she paused, her name on his lips sweet and unexpected. His muscles were still tight with anxiety. "Don't do that again."

She snorted. "Kiss you?" She kissed him again.

He growled impatiently. "Don't get into trouble unless I'm with you." He felt silly once he'd said it, and colored a little.

"Sorry, buddy. I'm a free spirit." She ran her tongue over his lips. "You can't tie me down. So does this mean you're not mad at me anymore?"

He flipped her onto her back, solid between her legs. His mouth found her breasts, the bare skin of his sides sliding against the soft flesh of her thighs. She grinned into the moonlight.

"I can certainly tie you to my bed frame to keep you out of trouble. And without complaint from you, I'm sure."

"For a time." She nipped his earlobe and heard an agreeing rumble in his throat. Like a big, wild cat that acted out just because he wanted to be petted.

"If you won't agree to captivity then this is just where I'll stay."

She snickered. "Eventually, you'll wear out too, buster. I know you like to think of yourself as a machine, infinitely powered, gorgeously rendered…." She could see his eyebrows rise in the dark. "But this is all flesh and blood." She poked his chest, fingernail pricking his bare skin.

She gasped as he ran his fingertips up her labia in the sweetest revenge. She was already extremely sensitive, already open for him. He didn't have to do much to drive her crazy with over-the-moon, lecherous desire. She didn't remember ever having this kind of sex drive with Yamcha. Just quiet, serious Vegeta, with his sharp tongue. Sometimes so curt no one could believe there'd be anything inside him worth caring for, but she swooned over it all: the way he poured his coffee, his corded forearm tightening deliciously; the way he was so polite with her older neighbors and her mother; the way he deferred to her knowledge about his car; the effort he put into being the best he could be.

"You have no faith in me," he scorned, shoving his hands beneath her back to lift her closer to him, his hot mouth moving against her sternum. She stretched her back, angling her breasts into his mouth, her belly brushing his.

He slid his hands out from under her back, kissing her deeply to distract her as he dipped one finger into her unexpectedly—not much, but just enough for her teeth to clench. She hissed with the shock of the sensation, of being filled, but not filled enough.

His other hand grabbed her face and held her still, and her eyes widened with anticipation. He kissed her hard and deep, and when he finally pulled away, he ran his thumb tenderly over her mouth. His breath was warm against her cheek and she smelled herself on him. Without thinking, she turned her head and sucked his finger into her mouth, opening her eyes for a moment to look at him as the taste of her core invaded her mouth. His mouth had parted above her, and to her delight, he smiled, a sadistic thing. It sent the butterflies in her belly into a panic.

He flipped her onto her belly without warning and bat her knees apart, and suddenly she felt him at her entrance, the solid, unyielding head of him, and she inhaled sharply into his pillow.

"Bulma," he teased her, a warning on his lips, and his hand stretched across her wrists above her head and held her there. "I'm going to show you exactly how angry you made me tonight."

She breathed hard into his sheets helplessly. Even knowing the battle had been lost, she got in one more shot. "Can't wait," she bit out, and when he thrust himself into her, they both cried out in surrender.

* * *

Chi Chi was looking at her with supreme skepticism.

"So you went after the guy with a gun," she drew out slowly, bringing her tea cup to her lips gracefully, "and then Vegeta came home and yelled at you." She sipped delicately. "And that's why you're covered in hickies like a teenager."

"Wellll," Bulma's head angled thoughtfully, "mostly. Yes. I would say that sums it up."

"And so you're wearing a scarf—which looks great on you by the way—to hide that madness, and that's why your hands are all bandaged up."

"Don't want to get grease in the cuts, you know."

"Yes. Well. So why were you late to work again?" Chi Chi squinted, head angling.

"Oh. Yes. Well, Vegeta got up for work early, because he's a workaholic, you know, and I got up because I had to be at the shop at six thirty, but I accidentally stumbled in on him working out, and then I inadvertently wound up on top of him—"

"That sounds logical, go on."

"And, while we're talking about it, does Goku wear those tight little spandex shorts to work out in? You know, if he doesn't, I'm going to go ahead and recommend them to you for Goku. Very…agreeable."

Chi Chi nodded, eyes half closed.

"Well, then he said, in the heat of the moment, 'I've had clients beg for mercy with more passion than you,' to which I said, 'If you truly feel that way, maybe you'll feel differently when I do this,' and that's how I wound up with this bruise on my back, cuz he lost his footing and the squat rack has a thing that sticks out, you know. Anyway," Bulma said, waving her hand in the air dismissively, "that's why I need you to do me this favor. I have to attend this car show tonight to debut my custom bike and my eleven second Beetle—"

"I have no idea what that means."

"It means it goes really fast. And he'd already left for work before I remembered to give it to him and I wasn't able to pick it up and run it by before work this morning because I was late due to my previous…engagements."

"Uh huh."

"Engagements with his dick, just so we're clear."

"Got it."

"Yeah. Sooo," Bulma shrugged. "Can I count on you?" She smiled broadly, wiggling her eyebrows.

"I can't imagine that prick wants anything to do with me right now." Chi Chi's nose scrunched up. "Ew. I should not have used the word 'prick' after that story."

Bulma's face fell. "Cheech, he's not upset with you."

"Yeah, it's just Goku, only the love of my life, my…baby's daddy." She grimaced. She put her head in her hands. "Don't tell me you haven't picked sides!" Chi Chi raised her voice.

"I love you all," she whined.

Chi Chi's eyes ripped upwards to Bulma. "Excuse me? Did you just say you loved…us  _all_?"

"What?" Understanding dawned on her. "Oh. No! No, I didn't!"

"Yes you did!" Chi Chi sat her tea cup down on the table and leaned forward. "Do you love him?" She hissed, staring at her intensely.

"No! I don't know! No! It's too early for that." Bulma gestured dismissively, her voice uneven and frantic. "No. We're just enjoying each other's company is all. One day at a time. Slowly. Sometimes quickly. As in, a quickie in my office." Bulma's eyes drifted upwards in remembrance.

"Bulma Briefs," Chi Chi chomped, "you guys have been a thing for how long and you're getting ready to move in with him! How did that even happen? Are you sure this is really a thing? I didn't think Vegeta had feelings. He's like, that guy from the Terminator movie, incapable of anything but insults and machismo and death and terror, and his greatest success is mouthing off to the square root of the most irritating degree."

Bulma watched her friend with a pout. "I don't know. I don't have any answers. We just…do what feels natural."

"And fucking in your Bus before work feels natural."

Bulma looked on with wide, open eyes, and shrugged one small, round shoulder. "Yep," she finally answered. "Besides, it was after work. Before work was in his gym."

Chi Chi leaned forward, pitching her voice delicately. "Are you sure this isn't just a thing where you guys just have really great sex and that's it? Are you sure you're not jumping the gun a little bit? Are you sure…he's not just…" She looked at her friend with concern, thinking over her words. "That he's not just using you?"

"You tell me." Bulma looked at her cooly over her coffee cup. "He's the one who begged me to move in with him."

"…Begged?" Chi Chi asked with disbelief.

Bulma smiled with conceit and shrugged.

Chi Chi's head fell into her arms. "Well." She sat up and patted her hair back into place. "I don't know what to say to you right now. You're obviously out of your mind."

Bulma grinned. "Does that mean you'll do it?"

Chi Chi rolled her eyes and sighed. "Yes. But you owe me."

"Yay!" Bulma waved her arms in the air.

"This isn't going to happen all the time, is it?"

"No, no," Bulma reassured her.

Chi Chi stood, kissing Bulma's cheek before smoothing her skirt down. She'd taken a long lunch so she could have it with Bulma at her shop. She might just have to swing home though and take a shower before going back to work. Bulma kept a tidy enough workplace, but there was nothing like sitting around a bunch of old cars to make Chi Chi feel all itchy.

"You mean until the next time you're humping like rabbits," she complained. "Just the thought of it makes me throw up a little in my mouth." Chi Chi made a face.

"Good thing I got you that anti-nausea medicine." Bulma smiled brightly up at her.

Chi Chi pinned her with a look. "I'm going to go give him this. And I'm not promising I'm going to say squat to him. We're enemies, you know, on principle. Blood enemies."

"Yeah, yeah. I don't care if you throw it on the floor and stomp out of there, it's just important that it gets to him immediately." Bulma's eyes were bright with excitement.

"Whatever, homegirl."

Chi Chi made her way to the door, heels clacking on the cement.

Bulma's newest assistant lumbered out from behind a car. "Uh, Ms. Briefs? I think I figured out the wiring problem on this Thing."

"I'll be there in a jiffy." Bulma gulped down her coffee and threw the remains of her lunch in the trash, thought better of it, and went ahead and tugged off her scarf and threw it in the trash, too. "Bye, Cheech." Chi Chi turned around and waved affectionately before the door shut behind her.

As Bulma's boots rang on the cement, her newest addition popped his head from under the Type 181.

"Here you go." He handed her a mass of tangled wires.

Bulma growled, snatching them up. "It never fails. If I had a dime for every car with electrical issues that rolled in here with a batch of soldered-together wires that led to nowhere.…"

"So what car are you going to take to the show tonight?"

Bulma tossed the wires into the big trash can, doe eyes wide with anticipation, hands waving with excitement. "A Westfalia camper I've been restoring for awhile, because that's always impressive. My Beetle, the '67, you know, the one with the turbo. I have a friend, Launch, who races it sometimes, and it's officially an eleven second car. Annnnd…" She smiled brightly. "Something else I've been working on for a short while. It's kind of a gift for someone tonight. I'm gonna surprise them." She blushed prettily. "Hopefully the judges think it's as cool as I do."

"I'm sure they will. Your shop is only the coolest little shop in West City." The boy reassured her passionately.

"Yeah? You think so?" Bulma looked upwards, smile benevolent. "I guess I'm pretty cool." She winked at him, and he had the audacity to blush.

"Yep," she said to herself, setting a crow bar in between the dash and the frame before slamming her boot on it, thinking of a particular man who liked her—liked  _her_. "I'm prettttttttty cool." She smiled day dreamily into the rust of the day's project.

* * *

"There's nothing to say."

"Oh, I think there is," Raditz argued, leaning forward in the office chair. "So, what, you're living together now?" Raditz through his hands up in exaggeration. "Who is this Vegeta? I don't even know you anymore."

Nappa chuckled.

Vegeta sent him a dark look and continued signing the forms.

"Look, we're going to go to church tomorrow night—"

Vegeta nearly choked.

"—to pick up chicks, and we'd like to invite you along."

"Can't, I'm meeting Bulma's parents for dinner."

Raditz made a whole host of indignant noises. "Wha—who—what—you're meeting her parents? Meeting her parents! What is this world coming to."

Vegeta growled deep in his throat but otherwise ignored him.

"I thought you were just fucking her—"

"Don't." Vegeta's head whipped up and he stared darkly at Raditz. "Don't."

"Wow." Nappa sighed dreamily at all the romance. "You're into her."

"Who gave you two losers the permission to comment on what I do in my personal life?"

"Well," Raditz began playfully, counting on his fingers, "first you started sneaking around with her, then you decked her ex-boyfriend, then you gave up the Freeman trial, then you let her work on your car—was that before or after you bumped uglies with her on your favorite car?—and then you asked her to move in with you—"

"You're very close to being in a coma," Vegeta rumbled into his paperwork.

"I like Bulma," Raditz protested. "In fact, I like Bulma a lot. Would you be willing to lend her out? I  _really_  should have hit that before you came in the picture." At Vegeta's very black look, Raditz shut his mouth. But not before opening it again. "I'm happy for you, pal, I'm just surprised, is all."

"Yeah," Nappa agreed.

"I didn't think you had it in you. You know. This commitment stuff."

"Yeah," intoned Nappa.

"I mean, this time next year, you'll be having babies and settling in the suburbs—"

"Yeah, the 'burbs," reiterated Nappa.

"—and celebrating your anniversary with a trip to Applebee's—"

"Yeah, Applebee's."

"I am so close to strangling both of you."

The door to the new office opened, and all three men looked up in surprise.

Chi Chi held the front door open, lips drawn and brows knit with unease. Her hair was in a high bun and she wore a purple skirt and blazer, looking for all intents and purposes like she'd gone to work and forgot which way that was.

"Yessss?" Raditz began first.

"Oh, can it, Raditz," bit Chi Chi.

Vegeta snorted quietly.

"Look, I know when I'm not welcome somewhere. Unfortunately, I was put up to this by my very good friend who just happens to be…'dating'…you," she said to Vegeta, "and I couldn't say no." She walked forward with her head held high and tossed an envelope onto Vegeta's desk.

Vegeta looked at it, grabbed it, and waved it at her. "What's this?"

Chi Chi looked at him steely. "What, you can't read?"

Vegeta glared at her.

He drew his finger under the envelope.

"The scarf is working wonders for her, by the way," Chi Chi drawled. "After ten minutes, she threw it into the trash in impatience and is now greeting customers with her sins for all to see. I'm pretty sure her new assistant has the hots for her and cried in the bathroom when he saw the mess you'd made of her neck."

Vegeta smiled with sinister satisfaction and drew the thick card stock out of the envelope.

He scanned it.

"This is tonight?" He looked up at Chi Chi incredulously.

"What, you want me to reschedule?" She asked wryly.

Vegeta growled. "I have work to do." He folded his arms on the desk, contemplating. "Fine. I'll be there. You can show yourself out."

"Real gentlemanly," Chi Chi sneered. She turned, but then thought better of it, and walked forward until she was leaning over his desk. Raditz and Nappa's eyes bulged at each other over the curve of her rear end.

"Listen, I'm just going to say this once, because I have the feeling you're smarter than you let on. I've known Bulma a lot longer than you, and as such, am very much qualified to say that you better not be fucking with her feelings. You  _got_  that? Because the moment you break her heart because, well, you're a self-adoring playboy and we all know you are, I will be on you like white on rice. Goku might be afraid to hurt your feelings," she cooed in his face, "but I am  _relishing_  the thought of it."

"What makes you think you can come into  _my_  business and start making threats?" Vegeta leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. "If you think I could be scared of a scrawny, pregnant, overbearing nag with one of the most passive aggressive excuses for a man I know, then it would be my pleasure to surprise you. Go ahead. Sell tickets, even. I'm getting excited just thinking about it." He smiled cruelly.

Raditz and Nappa's mouths parted in surprise.

Chi Chi straightened and scowled. "Okay, yes. Yes! I'm pregnant!" She gestured to her belly dramatically, addressing them all. "Yep! The secret's out. Cat's out of the bag. I'm knocked up. Now let me tell you why you don't want to fuck with me." She slammed her hands on Vegeta's desk and exhaled sharply through her nose. "Because you don't want to try my left hook and these hormones. Got it?"

She stood, glaring down her nose. Vegeta met her gaze.

Chi Chi turned to go, but thought better of it and turned back around to swat his pencil holder off his desk, scattering pencils.

"What the hell?"

"That's from Bulma," Chi Chi explained with narrowed eyes. "Because she really wouldn't have liked the way you just talked to me."

Vegeta sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose.

"I'll take it."

"Hmph." Chi Chi scowled before turning away and walking out the door, giving him one last intimidating look before walking down the sidewalk and merging with the afternoon shoppers.

Raditz and Nappa stared at Vegeta dumbly.

"What the hell was that all about?" Raditz cried out.

Vegeta tossed the card stock towards them, where it landed on the other side of his desk, and Raditz picked it up.

"There's a car show tonight, and I have to go." Vegeta put his arms behind his head and stared out the wall of windows with agitation. "Bulma's competing." He'd had no idea. She'd never said anything. How much else was he missing, buried in all this work? How much else was he missing just by virtue of who he was?

"Whipped," Raditz trilled, high-fiving Nappa.

Vegeta launched across his desk and grabbed for Raditz' shirt collar, only narrowly missing when Raditz squealed and fell backwards in his chair.


	16. Chapter 16

"BLINDED BY THE LIGHT," Bulma yelled at the top of her lungs. The music filled the dome of her bus as it raced down the highway, the wind whipping her hair across her face. "LIT UP LIKE A…uh, hmm-hmm-hmm-something something something, oh, I don't know the words."

She flicked the radio down a bit and grabbed for her Pepsi.

Tonight was going to be a great night.

Tonight was the silent auction, and tonight she'd be giving something very special to Vegeta.

"Your virginity?" Chi Chi asked on speaker, Bulma's cell phone sliding across her lap as she took the turn a little too hard.

Bulma snorted. "No," she exclaimed with disdain. "A motorcycle."

* * *

Vegeta felt out of place as soon as he regrettably, reluctantly,  _reproachfully_  stepped inside the doors of the car show. The sprawling downtown auditorium was milling with hundreds of people he wouldn't otherwise associate with. His father had always distinctly separated people by whether they could or could not afford his hourly rate, and the people here fell firmly into the latter category. They dressed with casual abandon, slouching jeans and ball caps and t-shirts with obnoxious graphics, and it was all rather…plebian. He repressed the desire to curl his lip and forced his legs to move forward.

He forked over his ticket to the people at the front desks silently, tugging his shirt cuffs at his wrists uncomfortably, letting others walk around him as he stood at the front entrance with his hands in his trench pockets. People seemed to avoid him—here, everywhere—and, for the moment, it gave him some relief.

Perhaps they could sense an air of superiority around him? A sort of musk secreted from his refined pores? He was undeniably out of place, nonetheless, because people seemed to be giving him a wide berth. His eyes narrowed at them all, as he stood rigidly just inside the doors.

Perhaps it was his more sophisticated attire. He'd simply worn what he left work in: black slacks, crisp button down, and a several hundred dollar, double breasted coat to guard against the evening breeze. Bulma had once called his wardrobe's emphasis on black "funereal." He sniffed at the memory, though found himself pulling more colorful garments out to wear when she was around.

He'd spent all day making sure the software and expense accounts for the firm were feasible and functional, and though he'd left it behind with supreme agitation, having been practically ordered to be at this event by the woman who already dictated far too much in his life, being out of the office was likely…good. It performed a function; it was contingent for recovery. That's what he told himself, anyway.

He had a habit of getting totally absorbed in his goals, as it was the time tested method by which he succeeded in all things. He was also a completionist; he would set himself on a task and energetically engage and master it from every angle, with the end goal being complete decimation. Bulma's interrupting his routine was balking, nerve-wracking even, but sometimes it afforded him a small break so that he could regroup and refocus. Not that he would admit that to her, of course.

He searched the auditorium with increasing disgruntlement. This was no small show. Cars lined the walls, queued in lines down the center—domestic power houses, imported engineering feats. He was a car man, but privately; he did not like sharing his interests with other people, as Bulma did. That just made it a task. Then he had to small talk with someone, and it was draining and grating, frankly, when the other person disagreed with him. It became a pissing contest, and it troubled him so much that he'd be seething about it for days.

But wandering through the crowd and cars offered a quiet lull from the usual absorption and intensity in his head. No one paid much attention to him for once, and he liked the white noise it created. He was often so full of competing projects and responsibilities, juggling the demand for integrity and pride and perfection, that it felt alien to let loose and be empty for a moment. He had Bulma to 'thank' for that.

He wandered until the crowd grew thicker. Brows pinching in irritation as his silence was intruded upon, he plowed through the people, hoping to come out the other side.

Instead, he was deposited in front of the 'B's Dubs' t-shirt stand.

He'd found her.

He fought down a wave of surprise which rocked him visibly. She'd dressed for the occasion—a fitted 'B's Dubs' shirt tucked into tight black denim, motorcycle boots with a practical heel. Her shop's logo was stretched across her ample chest, her high rise pants stretching over her generous hips and buttoning at the small of her waist. Her mass of curls, soft and bouncy, spilled around a black headband and he wanted to run his hands through it. Reminiscent of the cherry red Corvettes a few yards away, her bright red lips contrasted against clean white skin. She looked put together, relaxed, and glowing, a flirtatious Rosie the Riveter.

This was a different woman altogether, and yet the very same one. The thought of confronting her did something to his belly. Instead, he watched her for a moment interact with the crowd and a small group of reporters, smiling dazzling and wide. She gestured at the automobiles behind her, passionately discussing the sizes of cams, valves, carbs, and deconstructing his last lingering belief that she was not a woman who took her work seriously.

Not a lot of the kids knew who she was, though they hovered around the iconic relics she'd restored in fascination. But the media certainly did. There were a few journalists standing outside the circle, waiting to get a picture and a word. He was so used to seeing her pulling at the underwear riding up her butt and running into things in the morning, covered in dust and grease in a gloomy shop, that watching her confidently shake hands with her fans and self-assuredly joke with journalists was almost unsettling.

He put his hands in his pockets and meandered up to the front of the group, not wanting to intrude. As if sensing him there, she turned, and with a private smile, she reached for him, drawing him to her. For just a moment, he had the audacity to be embarrassed as bulbs flashed around them, but the blue gaze fixed on him dulled his awareness of the crowd for a moment.

"Don't you look happy to be here," she teased him quietly. "Dressed all in black for the occasion." Her hand squeezed leave his arm.

He stood uncomfortably. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"You look good," she assured him, smiling warmly.

"You don't look so bad yourself," he replied awkwardly.

"If you were a rock star I would throw my panties at you," she said earnestly.

"That's promising." He flashed his canines briefly.

Her smile grew broad, and she squeezed his arm. "I'm glad you came. I have a surprise for you, if you can hang around for an hour."

He looked at nothing in particular from the side of his eyes, exaggerating aloofness. "Oh?"

"Have you been working at the office all day?"

"Yes," he replied cautiously. He expected her to complain.

"Well, then, I expect you to stick around, then." She smiled at him then, an intimate thing that made his stomach clench.

It would never cease surprising him how unafraid she was to just  _be_  in public, how unapologetic and strong and opinionated and proud, without sacrificing her happiness to do it. She was well liked wherever she went, talkative and warm, making sure everyone she met in the crowd got an equal amount of attention. Outspoken, yes, but outgoing, and tempered by a respect for every individual she encountered...while he made everyone work for his attention without any promise of his appreciation.

She turned from him to take questions, to chat with spectators, to talk engine sizes and model years and air-cooled and water-cooled, and he stood stoically beside her as it washed over him. He'd thought that she was most in her element surrounded by parts and dust, her gloves and jumpsuit dipped in oil, but she flourished in the public spotlight. It had never occurred to him how strong, professional, and controlled she was, even when she got her hands dirty.

He startled as a car show officiant breached the crowd and handed Bulma a slip of paper. She opened the folded sheet, and her eyes grew wide. The officiant pat Bulma on the arm warmly and walked away.

She held it out to Vegeta between her fingers, eyes winking with delight.

Upon unfolding it he saw a woman's neat cursive writing— _$20,000 to West City Shelters._

"My Beetle was auctioned off to support West City Women's Shelters," she explained. "It garnered three times more than I expected!"

"Congratulations," he stammered.

He had met other successful women, women like Fasha, women whose success drew him in briefly and who just as swiftly bored him. Women who were good at what they did for a living, who didn't take no for an answer; sharp-dressed women, well-educated women, women who knew how to let him lead, and understood, at least, by design, the power he liked to have in a relationship. He was a stolid traditionalist. But Bulma was cut from an entirely different cloth. Her objectives were different: she didn't demand respect, she was given it by virtue of how she treated people and how she devoted herself to her craft. And she didn't let him lead at all—well, except in bed. That he chalked up to a lackluster sex life with an idiot before he'd arrived, like a paramedic, on the scene.

He'd always been drawn to strong women, but he'd never met one who wasn't just trying to  _project_  it, who made him feel anything more than a visceral attraction that would quickly disappear when the sun rose.

"It's almost time for the Best in Show," she stated, glancing at her watch. "Would you like to go take a look with me?"

His gaze didn't lift from the ground. "Sure."

It was hard to keep his attention; he found other things, like throwing himself into insurmountable assignments, more rewarding. They gave tangible rewards; relationships devolved quickly, leaving no profit, only headache.

She took his hand in hers and led the way. His eyes widened at the gesture.

He'd always felt that there was the serious business of living—work—and the lesser business of living, like wooing women, which never took much work and became dull pretty quickly.

And yet, that didn't apply to the thing that had misshapenly grown between them. She wasn't lesser, wasn't secondary…she wasn't classed at all with other women. He didn't have to try to be a man he was not with her, a two-dimensional man, a man penciled in on a piece of paper and animated by one night's stale magic. Despite how easy it could be, just to be with her, it was as compelling and fulfilling as any of his hard work was. To be around her was to be three dimensional.

"Hey," she whispered. "See the guy in the red shirt over there?" She pointed into her palm. "That's Harishi Marumoto."

His brows rose. "Of Marumoto's Motors?"

She nodded, smiling with barely contained glee. "Isn't that exciting?"

He cocked an eyebrow. They had different definitions of 'excitement.'

Because of his aversion to intimacy, he'd never had a serious relationship he realized as he stood uncertainly at Bulma's side. He had no experience with how to receive or express feelings, how to interact with a woman in a way other than for his own pleasure. He'd never even had a role model of how to act as…as a romantic partner. Commitment was for salarymen, his father would often say.

With other women, he was a classically built body, but always a shot caller. His word was non-negotiable, and it was like attracting—and drowning—flies with unforgiving honey.

Her lips thinned. "I wonder if I should approach him."

Bulma did not interact with him just as a face and a title, but…as a man inside. Drooling over his chiseled body after he got back from the gym earned him a remark about all of his hard work. Bossing her around usually earned him a sharp reminder that she had a will of her own. She had inadvertently shown him that his reasoning took place inside him, not out; that there was a thing inside and apart from the blackness of his heart, and it was  _him_.

A few men stopped in their tracks beside them, exclaiming and pulling Bulma into an embrace.

"I'd like you to meet a few of my peers in my field," her voice drifted to him. The men regarded him, smiling. She beamed at them all. "Vegeta, this is Marty and Sam, owners of Motorheads; Paul Aaron, head of Paul's Porsche's…"

He shook hands with them all.

She did not follow the logic by which he'd set up his life, his father's logic, the logic of corporate work, of money and power. That his father was good at his job was just a perk; but it was for the  _power_  that he sought to achieve in his field, not the personal satisfaction or the pride of work itself. Vegeta had always had to work twice as hard as his father to prove himself. But Bulma simply wasn't interested in proving herself; she did the hard work because it was the right thing to do, and because she enjoyed it. The fame was only a perk if she could use it to help others. It was backwards, and Vegeta didn't know where on that spectrum he would even put himself.

They shook hands with more reporters and made their way slowly toward the motorcycles at the far end of the room.

Though she was careful to give him his space, he felt her fingertips brush his backside as she explained each competing motorcycle category, gesturing at groups of bikes, her hand brushing the divot between his shoulder blades subtly.

Breaking him free of his thoughts for a moment, she leaned in close. Her hair brushed his ear. She smelled clean and feminine. "Wanna go out for a beer and pizza after this? I'm starving."

His voice quietly grumbled over her. "Does it lead to undressing you?" Sometimes he had no control of what he said around her. It was galling.

She beamed up at him. "Buy me a chocolate dipped chocolate ice cream cone and we have a deal."

"Done," he whispered silkily into her ear, and for a moment, she leaned her head against his cheek, smiling into his shoulder.

A group of older men introduced themselves and began asking her questions, and she pulled away to answer amiably.

He folded his arms over his chest and glared out at the crowd.

What kind of woman did he think he'd wanted?

A successful one, in a corporate field, one who, like him, was highly composed. He'd wanted one who didn't want to become attached. A woman who dressed powerfully, but a woman who deferred to him in all things. Bulma was none of those things. What kind of man did that make him?

He listened at her side as she took questions, slinging jokes, the flash of cameras every now and then.

She gestured down the aisle. "Let's go look at the vintage bikes, shall we?"

The two of them might be opposites on paper, but as she lectured in casual, intoxicating detail the math and physics behind the combustion chamber while tickling the kids that wound around her legs and laughing with the journalists, he was struck hard by the character of the woman before him.

It didn't hurt that she was beautiful, classically stunning when cleaned up, but so understated and so often covered in soot that it was typically overlooked, except those moments he'd watch her blue brows furrow with thought under the chassis of a car, her eyes unblinking as the cogs in her head wheeled over data. He wanted to lick the furrow between her brows and cover her slender neck with his mouth, the sweat and grease a private aphrodisiac. Other men might have seen a woman too short, too proud, too unambitious, too loud. He had never really seen one before until her.

"Which one do you like?"

He startled. "What?"

"Which one do you like?" She gestured at the motorcycles, fully restored antiques gleaming.

He looked at them all quietly. They were all appealing in their own way, though there was one at the end that kept drawing his eyes, aggressive in its styling with a classic aesthetic. It was bold but controlled, boasting a silver gas tank and an intimidating black frame, balanced with thick, menacing wheels.

"That one?"

"What?" He frowned.

"Do you like that one or something?" She asked.

"Nice looking bike," he grumbled, shrugging.

"It's alright," she agreed, pulling him in the other direction.

They were making their way back to the B's Dubs tent when a young man approached them, and to Vegeta's puzzlement, extended a small gold trophy to Bulma. "Best Vintage," he confirmed, shaking her hand.

She startled them all by hugging the young man, and then hugging Vegeta. There were a few flashbulbs, and after answering a few questions happily, she pulled him away from the crowd by his wrist.

He watched her confidence stall, replaced by bashfulness.

"Vegeta." She cleared her throat. "It was a team job," she explained. "I had a friend at Cafe Racers Motorcycles build the low profile body, while I worked on the engine. The paint scheme is based off the Porsche 911 Magnus Walker. I thought you'd like that. And the seat is vintage leather." She seemed to be growing more and more embarrassed as she spoke. "The headlight is just like my own, and it has twin ceramic coated exhaust pipes." She laughed nervously.

He wasn't sure what she wanted him to say. "Your point?" He said stupidly.

"Yes, well," she squeaked. And cleared her throat. "The bike you liked. It's yours. I built it for you."

He stared at her dumbly.

She stared back, worrying her lip.

"Is that okay?" She finally asked, wanly. "I wanted it to compete so you could know with certainty you had a first class bike."

He watched her with astonishment.

She pulled a small set of keys from her pocket, holding them out cautiously to him.

He put his hand out, and she dropped them in. His hand curled around them.

"I can't take these," he finally said.

Her mouth parted in surprise, or maybe protest.

His voice dipped into a growl. "I don't want it."

He was a hardworking man who'd climbed his way to the top without making any friends.

For the first time in his life, he didn't know that he deserved this. He hadn't worked for it. He'd just been along for the ride.

He didn't deserve a good woman. Not until he gave her something back in return.

He held the keys out to her. Paralyzed for a moment, she then grabbed them with shaky fingers.

"Well, then." She cleared her throat, and after gazing at their feet for a moment, turned and walked away.

He watched her leave mutely, eventually turning on his heel towards the exit.

* * *

She drove home with watery eyes. The streetlights glowed down the strip of highway, creating tracers as they floated past her. She dashed at her eyes and gripped the bus's wheel tightly.

She felt stupid. She felt stupid for assuming Vegeta wanted or was ready for that kind of gesture. That seemed really, painfully clear now.

She'd just been so excited for the last month, putting together the motorcycle engine in her shop manically, exchanging emails back and forth with the design company, anticipating…what?

She knew Vegeta wasn't super emotive, and she was prepared for that...she'd thought. But she thought that a gift from the heart superseded that. This was no big deal, she'd thought, except it was a big deal, because it was a really personal undertaking. She was an adult, and she shouldn't have jumped into such an intimate project with someone whose status in her life wasn't clear to her, who wasn't ready to reciprocate those kinds of feelings.

"I'm so dumb," she whimpered. "I'm just a big dummy." She sniffled.

It had taken another hour to take down the booth that housed the B's Dubs t-shirts for sale, and every second was exceedingly painful. She had to touch base with her tow guy, who would be towing the bike back to her shop, rather than to Vegeta's garage. She shook hands with the Beetle's and the camper's new owners, which sold for a large sum during the silent auction. Forty grand had entered her bank account tonight, and it didn't count all the t-shirt sales and the marketing, the articles that would hit the stands next week.

And now it all felt empty.

It wasn't so much that she was hurt that he hadn't seemed excited—he was a self-contained man, she knew that—as much as she was hurt that she'd thought there was more to this than there really was. But things had just been going so great between them, and rather than hold on to it for a few more months feeling out their situation, after he'd confessed he wanted her to move in, she'd thought that was the sign she needed….

Things always seemed to be moving so fast between them but not going anywhere at all.

She grabbed for her phone, toying with it on her lap, her fingers sliding on the buttons, caressing. She pressed number 1, Chi Chi's speed dial. And then promptly turned the phone off.

Chi Chi had her own problems. It would be selfish of her to bitch and moan about her own petty issues to Chi Chi, who was having serious mom-to-be issues. She and Chi Chi were usually gregarious with one another, but they were kind of starting their relationship anew, and Chi Chi was in a very delicate place, and Bulma didn't want to step on any toes.

Bulma threw the phone into the center console with frustration.

She thrust her hand out for the phone again, this time pressing five, Goku's speed dial number. And then threw the phone down with frustration. She couldn't call Goku and not Chi Chi! Chi Chi would be hurt that she hadn't came to her first.

Bulma screamed at the top of her lungs, jerking the wheel. She flipped the analog radio on and turned it up loud enough not to hear herself think.

She pulled off the highway as her ramp sidled right, pointing her towards the large properties in midtown that her parents resided at.

When she pulled in, she was disappointed to see that he wasn't there, waiting for her. Fury rolled over her for being so dumb to expect that he would.

She cranked the parking break and flew up the front steps, stomping in the front door. She grabbed for the burgundy bubble helmet that sat unassuming on the front table in the foyer and pivoted, shutting the front door as quickly as she'd come in.

She was going for a bike ride, and she was going for pizza and ice cream and beer: the trifecta of bad mood food.

* * *

Vegeta barked for the server and sat dubiously, drinking his third scotch as if someone might at any moment jump out and attack him in between his haranguing the servers and criticizing the menu. Sometimes Raditz was reminded of how much of an asshole his friend was. When he was around Bulma, he was at least considerate of how he treated people in front of her.

"You know," Raditz began loftily, "true love is said to change you by bringing out the best of yourself, and by helping you grow up, together."

"Shut up, Raditz," Vegeta snarled.

It was one of the rare occasions that Vegeta joined them on a pub crawl. It was a Friday night, and Raditz was pretty sure Vegeta had promised to hang out with Bulma, but he wasn't going to complain. Audibly.

"Sooooooo," Raditz drawled, glancing at Nappa nervously. "How 'bout that football team?"

"Go football team," Nappa offered supportively.

"Another scotch!" Vegeta hollered.

* * *

An hour and a half ride through West City's highways and hills and now she was happily by herself.

Happily, oh-so-happily.

She slumped into the seat in the corner of the pizza joint, listening to the occasional roar of excitement when the jocks sank a waffle ball into a plastic cup full of beer, and thankfully she couldn't think over the blaring music, the lights from pinball machines blinking around her.

Usually she buried herself in work at her shop when feeling down, but tonight she was tired of machines, tired of logic, tired of hard work. The shop had been bustling all summer, and she was wound up and needed to wind down. The summer was drawing to a close, the sun setting sooner and the wind, buffeting against her on her bike, crisper. The need for a change in her life was coming on strong.

She took a gulp of her second pilsner and sighed. She then buried her head in her arms and groaned. She was lonely, and upset, and so exhausted.

"Hey, girlie."

Bulma peeked upwards from her crossed forearms, warily peering at three young men with baseball caps turned backwards.

"Wanna play?" One of them thumbed behind them.

She narrowed her eyes at them, gauging them for any bad, frat boy intentions. There was a large group of guys and girls behind them, chatting and bouncing balls with drunk abandon. Neither of the boys in front of her seemed creepy, just sincere, young and outrageously dumb.

She smiled widely.

"I'll tell ya what." The frat boys shrank a little as Bulma stood in all of her petite glory, slamming her draught and grinning at the curmudgeons as she spoke. "Four out of five wins. And let's up the stakes. $100—each—on the winner."

* * *

The young men begrudgingly placed dollar bills in her hand and sulked off as Bulma slammed the eighth dixie cup of beer and hopped on her feet in a little swaying dance while the phone rang against her ear.

"Hello?" The phone spoke with a smidgen of confusion.

"Hey," she replied confidently, otherwise known while tipsy as a-little-too-loudly. "I just won a drinking contest against a bunch of frat boys."

"What would convince you to enter a drinking contest with a bunch of frat boys? Nevermind. Pride. I get it. So why are you calling me?"

Bulma was smiling, the walls spinning a little. Raditz was always so funny. For some reason he was whispering. "Because I have a really excellent idea…" She paused. What had been her really excellent idea? "…An idea...that I think you would make an exquisite partner for."

"Oh? I'm at Easy Rider's on 4th Street, where you at?"

"Oh, what a co-inky-dink. I am at Earl's Pub on 7th Street. I'm not fit to drive, though, so I'll meet you at the fountain. Ready? Set? Go!" She had to press the off button a few times before it finally ended the call, almost dropping her phone. She pulled on her leather jacket and adjusted her riding gloves clumsily as she headed out the door.

She wasn't so drunk yet that she wasn't equipped to walk down the street, the large fountain at the center of the bar district just meters away. Well, maybe a little, as she pinioned around a trash can. But the drinking contest with the frat boys had been  _exactly_  what she needed. It had renewed her confidence! And given her an extra couple of hundred dollars in her pocket. Here she was, boots chomping the pavement with a slap-slap-slap, wide hips and red lips to cut a man on this Saturday night. She was loud and proud; she was invincible!

She lost track of time but eventually found herself at the fountain, pleased to see Raditz standing nearby, smoking, watching the crowd reservedly.

She stumbled into him, grabbing his shoulder and shaking it. "It's been so long!" She shouted, hugging him. She didn't notice Raditz tense under her embrace. Had she not ever hugged him before? She should do it more often!

"Yeah, real long," he replied sarcastically, peeling himself from her. "You're tanked. Are you here alone?"

"Shyeah," she snorted, and Raditz flinched before wiping his face. "Just needed to get away by myself, you know."

Raditz looked at her doubtfully. "Uh huh." He shifted. "Well, you should know—"

"Barry was telling me that there's a big karaoke competition going on at Donovan's right now," she explained, already dragging him past the fountain towards the dive bar across the street.

"Who's Barry?"

"One of the frat boys. I told you that. Listen to me every once in awhile! It's going to be crazy. Crazy! I knew that Raditz, you, Raditz, the one and only, were my partner in crime as soon as he told me what he said to me, that it's going to be awesome. Didn't I tell you?! It's karaoke ohmygod!" She wailed.

Raditz cringed behind her. "Yeah."

"Oh, man, Pat Benatar, Devo, oh my god, we're going to kill it. We're going to kill it."

"Bulma—"

She pulled him into the little dive bar blaring music on the corner without a second thought.

"I forgot how happy I am when I'm around people," she yelled over the music, jerking Raditz down so she could yell in his ear. "Being happy makes me happy." His hair was in the way. "You have the hair of an angel, has anyone ever told you that?" She inserted her fingers into his hair, petting him.

"No. No one ever has," Raditz admitted, grabbing her hand and holding it still. "Hey, there's something I gotta tell you—"

"Hey! Hey, you!" Bulma was shouting at the guy at the sound booth. "We wanna go." She pointed between both of them frantically. "We wanna sing."

"Ohhhh, no. No, I don't think so." When Raditz tried to pull away, Bulma yanked him closer towards her.

The DJ was nodding. "What track do you want?"

Before Raditz could intrude and pull Bulma away, she was already jumping up and down with excitement. "A hair band. Oh my god, a hair band!" She wrapped Raditz' hair around her fingers absently like a school girl. "'Nothing But A Good Time!'" Bulma tugged her hand from his hair and slapped him on the back, bubbling with ecstasy at her wit, and Raditz' face fell.

"Oh God," he squawked as she pulled him to the stage.

* * *

They couldn't help that they entered the bar as ominous as gangsters, Nappa towering over all as Vegeta's already angry, tired gaze seared all who glanced over and quickly looked away. He wasn't in the mood for this, and he felt like taking it out on everyone who looked twice at him. He didn't like himself today, and he didn't like anybody else.

Grumbling, Vegeta scanned the crowd, the blasted music grating on his already frayed nerves. He'd had a few more glasses of scotch and what he could stomach of a porterhouse steak while waiting for Raditz to reappear, and it had done nothing to give him any direction. The effect of the alcohol was disappointingly lacking clarity and he was taking its affront personally.

"Where is the pathetic little worm?" Vegeta asked Nappa as they surveyed the bar. It was densely packed, and the lights were infuriatingly low except over the stage. "He's not here. Let's keep looking."

It was as if the smoke cleared in front of them, as if a curtain pulled back and he and Nappa's gazes fatefully discovered the stage at the same time.

There stood Raditz, with his foot resting on an amp on the stage, singing high-pitched and eerily in tune with the woman's voice erupting from the speakers.

He whipped his hair over his shoulder teasingly, fluttering his lashes at the crowd as he palmed his chest.

As if in slow motion, none other than the petite, blue-haired misguided-object-of-his-affection swaggered out from behind him, microphone in hand, rapping, hands cutting the air in exaggerated gestures.

Vegeta's face colored as Nappa burst into deafening laughter.

"Raditz is singing the girl's part," Nappa pointed out unnecessarily.

Bulma masterfully spat the last verse in the song like she'd sang it a hundred times before, and Vegeta had no doubt that she had. Raditz was gyrating his hips and running his hands over his body to the hook, to everyone's shrieks and excitement, and the crowd erupted into cheers.

Vegeta couldn't move. Was it humiliation, or because he knew if he did he'd grab Raditz by the suit lapels and drag him out of the bar and Raditz wouldn't have such pretty hair anymore? And yet, here he was, a man of action, paralyzed.

"Let's hear it for Mariah Carey, everyone," Bulma's voice rang through the speakers, and screams and clapping crescendoed as Raditz threw his hair back and posed and the music finally dwindled.

Bulma beamed and leapt into Raditz' arms, waving at the crowd before Raditz carried her carefully down the stairs from the stage. Bulma kissed Raditz' cheek.

Vegeta's vision grew red.

He was moving through the crowd before he realized it, distantly hearing Nappa's protest. He pushed through the crowd without concern, knocking people out of the way as he beelined toward them.

"What are you doing?" He seethed as he pulled up in front of them, grabbing someone's tall glass of beer from their hand despite their protest and downing it to refrain from grabbing Bulma and throwing her over his shoulder. The buzz sank its claws into him immediately.

"Vegeta!" Bulma said warmly. It was clear, his gaze drifting over the light sheen of sweat on her face, her frazzled hair, her unfocused gaze, that she'd been drinking. The idiot. She was gorgeous.

He distantly saw Raditz stiffen and sweat as he waited for Vegeta to possibly pummel him.

"Again," Vegeta replied sarcastically, " _what_  are you  _doing_?" Vegeta gestured at the stage angrily.

Bulma's face grew stormy. "We were participating in the ancient art of kah-rah-oh-keh," she argued. Her eyes widened. "You know, I forgot for a second how mad I was at you. But now I remember! I'm mad at you!" Her arms folded over her chest and she listed.

"You're mad at me?" Vegeta laughed haltingly. "I'm out having drinks with  _my_  friends and the next thing I know you've stolen one of them."

"Hey girl, is this guy bothering you?" A young man with his hat on backwards put his hand protectively on Bulma's shoulder, glaring at Vegeta.

His _hand was_  on _her shoulder._

Steam erupted from Vegeta's ears.

"No, Barry. Thank you. He's just my arrogant jerk boyfriend."

Bulma patted the hand on her shoulder and the guy pulled away reluctantly.

"Or are you even my boyfriend?" Bulma thrust her fingertip into Vegeta's chest, and he stiffened with anger. "One moment you're asking me to shack up with you and the next moment you're acting like you can't wait to be rid of me!"

Unsure how to get out of this dangerous territory, he turned his rage on Raditz.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me you were leaving to hang out with my crazy woman?"

Raditz shrank into himself. "I tried," he squeaked. "She called me and she was obviously drunk. I left to try to get her home but she dragged me here. I knew you were upset with her so I didn't want to bother you!"

"Hey. Hey hey hey hey." Bulma inserted herself between them. She grabbed a drink from the table next to them and downed it, much to the further chagrin of the table's occupants. "Raditz is a real friend. Not like you. It's not his fault he loves Mariah Carey!"

"I don't want anyone touching you," Vegeta said without thinking, tic pulsing.

"What, like this?" She rubbed Raditz' arm with her palms like she was trying to start a fire. Vegeta grit his teeth as Nappa and Raditz looked on with awkward confusion. "You're a real jerk, you big jerk," she stuttered, dwarfed on each side by Raditz and the jock. Her arms stiffened at her sides angrily. "Just call it like it is! Is this a hooking up thing? Is this a booty call thing and you just don't know how to tell me that's all it is? Cuz if it is, I'm gonna move on! I'm a beautiful woman and I'm not getting any younger here!" She threw her arm companionably around Barry, and Vegeta finally lost it.

Vegeta grabbed at Bulma's hand and drug her out of the bar, Nappa and Raditz trailing reluctantly behind.

"I'm taking you home," he grit, holding her by the upper arm and leading her down the alley, toward the parking lot where his Ghia sat.

"You're not taking me anywhere. I don't want to be anywhere stupid with someone as stupid as you right now," she issued haughtily, her intimidation somewhat diminished by her slurring.

Vegeta came to a halt and faced her furiously.

"What am I not doing right? Huh? Tell me what I need to do right!" Vegeta's arms waved wildly. Raditz and Nappa lingered a few feet away, ready to intervene.

"You need to figure out what you want from me! I'm tired of living in…in a state of unknown with you," she explained uncertainly. "It's like you have no idea how to interact with other people. This is hard on me. Your running away from your feelings punishes me." She looked surprised. "Wow, that came out a lot more eloquently than I thought it would."

"Why can't we just go by how we feel day to day?!" He argued with frustration. "Today I feel like drinking. Tomorrow: Who knows?" It was not the question he wanted to ask, but he couldn't find the words to say what he needed without feeling humiliatingly uncomfortable.

"Because I love you!" She cried out.

Vegeta's heart stopped.

Tears grew in her eyes and she wrung her hands together.

"I love you and want to be loved in return," she sniffled. "But I don't know that I'm even welcome in your life."

Vegeta's eyes widened.

She watched him for a moment, but as the seconds ticked by, her brows clashed over her watery eyes and she set her jaw. She spun away and began walking down the alley by herself. "You're a coward, Vegeta," she spat as he watched her stomp down the alley. "At least have the balls to tell me you're not interested."

Vegeta wasn't aware that he was walking until his hand was on her shoulder and spinning her around, grasping her in his arms.

His mouth found hers, hot and still, and he pressed her against him firmly, his fingers sinking into her hair.

They stumbled into the wall. He kissed her again, and again, and she stood dumbfounded under his assault until tentatively kissing back, and something tightened through his chest.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he muttered into her mouth, his mouth sucking at her lips, his chest against her own, heaving.

"Are you telling me this is the first time you've kissed a girl?" She joked weakly into his mouth as his hands rested on her waist possessively.

He growled. "I don't know….I don't know!…How to be a, a…boyfriend...to you." He pulled back and chewed on the word with embarrassed anger. He watched her from hooded eyes. "This is not where my skill set lies. If you were smart, you'd move on."

"Vegeta, I'm not smart, I'm drunk," she admitted, blinking. "All I ask is that you say you're committed to me. You're a man of your word. Just say you're committed and I won't have to be scared anymore."

"I'm not boyfriend material," he argued, eyes wild as he clutched her close.

"I know that," she consoled him. "Just say you and I are firmly together. Just say you're serious about me. That's all you have to say, and I won't doubt you again."

"I…" He shook his head, and then kissed her over and over rapidly. They swayed together, dancing around each other's feet into the middle of the alley.

"Just," he pressed his tongue into her mouth then, his hands smoothing down her arms to grasp her tightly. They broke for air. "Just, say you're mine."

"I'm yours," she breathed, trying to keep up with his mouth. "Now reciprocate it you idiot."

Everything in Vegeta was yelling out at the same time in a cacophony and he couldn't make heads or tails of what he was thinking. This required clear thinking! This required time and practical thinking and a strategy, and then they'd discuss assets and some kind of prenuptial and—

They swayed and listed, and he pressed her against the wall, kissing her roughly, holding her head against his with barely controlled passion.

"Just don't call me your boyfriend. I loathe that word," he griped into her mouth.

She surprised him by jumping into his arms and pulling him close, winding her arms around his neck and throwing her legs around his hips.

"How 'bout my bottom bitch," she breathed, pulling him tightly against her. "The old ball and chain? My lover? My old man? My boy toy. My arm candy."

"Shut up," he said, covering her mouth with his own.

Raditz searched for his lighter in his coat pocket.

"Cute," Raditz sighed to Nappa as they watched the pair press up against each other and sag against the alley wall.

"Love," Nappa sighed.

They nodded and lit their cigarettes, making sure no one entered the alley.


	17. Chapter 17

"Alright, kids, where am I driving you?" Raditz sucked on his cigarette and blew smoke out the open window.

Bulma's head bounced on Vegeta's shoulder as they floated down the highway. Her lids managed to lift halfway, sleepily tracking the light poles as they passed rhythmically out her window. She shifted under the weight of Vegeta's cheek resting against the top of her head.

"Just take us to Vegeta's place," she recommended through stiff lips. Vegeta's hand on her shoulder twitched at the sound of his name, but otherwise he hadn't moved since crawling into the backseat.

"Am I going to have to carry you up the stairs once we get there?" Raditz flicked his cigarette out the window, spraying orange embers. "You're gonna owe me one. Vegeta's short, but he's one dense motherfucker."

"We can do it ourselves, right, Vegeta?" She squeezed his thigh. He didn't budge. "We don't need anyone's help." She thought she heard Vegeta grunt in agreement.

Raditz shot her a disbelieving look in the rearview. "I can't say I envy you two right now. You're both gonna wake up with one mean hangover tomorrow."

"You calling me old?" Bulma tried to be intimidating and fell flat.

"No, no, not old," defended Raditz. "Just…crazy, maybe. And severely hardheaded."

The air was crisp, a brine of ozone wafting off the concrete, upturned earth underfoot and dead leaves beginning to release their curled clutches from the trees. Bulma breathed deeply. It was a time for change and settling in before winter. She angled her head carefully to peer up at Vegeta, sleeping above her.

The choppy rumble of a motorcycle engine grew outside her window, and she turned to it, causing her world to spin a little.

The front of a motorcycle pulled into view, and Bulma's eyes narrowed as she tried to piece together the feeling emerging from the haze.

"Hey," she finally asserted. "That's my motorcycle."

The engine revved, the front end lifted off the ground a little, and suddenly a familiar hulking form was waving at them enthusiastically, her too-small helmet perched on top of his head. The motorcycle struts were weighed down with three hundred and fifty pounds of college-linebacker-turned-attorney.

Bulma's eyes bulged. "Hey, that's my motorcycle!"

Nappa's maw stretched into a depraved and ebullient grin as he sped off, engine roaring.

"Yeah, and you better thank him for driving your bike home, too. How the hell did you think you were going to get home as drunk as you were?"

"When did you turn into someone's mom?" Bulma pouted, sinking into the seat grumpily.

He sighed. "I don't know. I don't think I like where it's going."

"Raditz, you're a good guy. I love you." Bulma's eyes fluttered closed.

Raditz peered back in the rearview mirror. "That's what they all say, until they wake up next to me in the morning."

"I'm not going to cuddle you," Vegeta warned drowsily.

Raditz sniffed, looking back out over the dash of the car. "You're missing out, buddy."

In the backseat, Bulma and Vegeta were silent, leaning against the other. Raditz watched the highway meet the horizon dolefully, the car becoming quiet again.

* * *

Bulma flung open the door and beamed at him. "Hello there, stranger."

Vegeta walked in to the Briefs' home cautiously, uncertainly clutching a bottle of merlot.

"Nursing a hangover?" Bulma shot him a sympathetic look, shutting the door behind him. She'd left his place a few hours ago to help her mother with dinner. To her surprise, Vegeta had still been buried face down in bed when she'd locked up behind her. His overwhelming work schedule had finally caught up with him.

"A few drinks aren't going to knock me under the table," he asserted, skimming Bulma's clean and chirpy form with a look resembling reproach that belied his statement.

She was dressed in an oversized sweater and leggings, her hair pulled back loosely, a stretchy headband framing her smiling, clean face. He stifled a grumble. It seemed that he had overdressed again. He had never had so many frequent encounters with embarrassment and the unknown before he met Bulma.

Bulma took the bottle gracefully from his hands while leading him from the doorway.

"Uh huh. Well. The prodigal boyfriend returns," she smiled warmly. "My mother is very excited for you to try her pie. And if you see her first," her voice dipped into its most conspiratorial registers, " I'm more likely to be able to find something more important that divides your attention, you know, if you'd like to beat it out of there quick." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, guiding him from the foyer and through the expansive sitting room to the kitchen, whose aroma had gripped his stomach the moment she'd opened the front door.

"Mom?" She strode into a doorway, and Vegeta hovered in the doorway, staring at the enormous buffet steaming on the counters.

Bulma's mother turned toward him with an elated smile.

He steadied himself for whatever may come. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to deal with someone's mother. He exhaled through his nose and straightened. This was just like dealing with any line-towing defense attorney. He had gone up against a craggy footing as treacherous as this one a million times. He would overcome this.

Vegeta's mouth ticked in what Bulma assumed was supposed to be a smile, poised and professional as he held out his hand. "Mrs. Briefs."

Bulma's mother shook his hand only for an instant before swiftly throwing her arms around him and squeezing, laughing coyly. "Oh, you. Call me Bunny! You've got a way with words, I can tell!"

Bulma snorted, and he cut her a menacing look.

"What a big, strong man you are." Both hands remained on his biceps, squeezing approvingly. "Do you work out?" Bunny's big blue eyes looked up at him innocently.

Bulma's own blue eyes widened considerably from behind her mother as she clapped her hand over her mouth to avoid laughing.

"Yes," he finally answered.

"I can tell," she winked, patting his broad shoulders appreciatively.

Bulma slapped her remaining hand over her mouth, eyes twinkling.

"Dinner smells delicious," he interjected, ignoring Bulma.

"Ohhh, thank you! It will be done in just a few moments, I promise! I couldn't decide what to make, so I made it all! And I made you a pie to take home!" She gestured behind her, where several pies were spread, cooling.

Vegeta's eyes widened. "Thank you."

"Mom, I'm sorry to take him away from you like this, but I was going to give Vegeta the tour of the grounds?…" Bulma was already placing her hand on his shoulder demonstratively.

"Oh." Bunny said with some disappointment, eyes flicking between the couple. "Oh, yes of course! Of course. That's expected. Well, dinner will be done in about thirty minutes. Don't make me have to come after you two!"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Bulma said under her breath, pulling Vegeta by the arm quickly from the room.

Once they'd breached the front room, Bulma grinned up at him. "I like your enthusiasm, mister," she teased, gazing at him with pride. "Have you gone to your happy place in order to do this?"

Vegeta smiled at her wickedly, some of his self-possession returning. "As soon as you opened the door."

"Well," she began. "I guess I'll show you around." She guided him gently into a long, jutting hallway that spanned the diameter of the house, a feature unlike any dwelling he'd had the misfortune to have dinner with someone's parents at.

"Did your father build this house himself?" He hesitated to ask.

"How can you tell?" She smiled back at him. "Yes. Geodesic homes are a smart design. They hold the greatest volume for the smallest amount of surface area, and they're energy efficient. They're also extremely sturdy, by the triangular and polyhedral elements of the frame's seams placed on top of one another. My father had hoped they'd take off in the post-war culture, but unfortunately, they remain a kind of a novelty, except in the aerospace industry." She shrugged.

He listened silently, hiding an internal war as he tried to tamper his nervousness with the aggressive confidence that he usually brought to board meetings and seemed to be failing him now.

"So!" She continued, leading him down another hall. "My parent's home once was the seat of Capsule Corporation, back when my father was starting up the company, begging for investors, and while my mother was pregnant with me. As you probably know, they've moved operations downtown, and all that remains is a dozen bedrooms and some lab space downstairs. I'll be showing you my bedroom first," she finished, with some embarrassment.

She pulled up to a door, turning the knob and flinging the door open.

It was as if the door opened onto a crime scene.

A black cat sprinted up to her, meowing.

"Hey, buddy," she mewled, bending to scratch him beneath his whiskered cheeks, and stood. "So," she said, somewhat flushed and self-conscious. "This is my room. It's temporary," she hurriedly said. "I will likely find my own place to live, as that seems overdue, but my Mom really likes me around, I think she gets a little lonely, so I stay…." She sat on her bed with a plop. The cat leapt up to sit beside her.

He stared in alarm at the wall-to-ceiling engines and machines, the desk swept with paperwork and old food. A tv and a stereo were crammed into one corner, spilling over with DVD cases and record albums, a makeup vanity and a dresser in the other. There was barely room to walk—and the room was spacious. Posters were pinned askant all over the walls, bands he hadn't heard in at least a decade. "Don't you ever leave work at work?"

"You're one to talk," she snapped, eyeing him with irritation. "What can I say. I work hard, I play hard. Truly, though, most of this junk was left here before I went off to college. The second time." She looked up at him, biting her lip with worry.

"You are worried I will think less of you for this." He was still gazing around at it all. It wasn't so much a mess as, he conceded, it was the result of a very busy mind.

"I'm worried," she corrected," that you will abruptly lose interest in my staying with you if you see the kind of destruction and chaos I'm capable of. I'm like Godzilla. I level cities." Her fingers playfully folded into claws.

"Well, I'd have good reason," he said flatly, missing her face falling into a frown.

"Real gentlemanly," she snapped. "Look, there are, just, some real things that you need to consider before we take that leap," she shrugged self-consciously, falling back onto the pillows on her bed. "You mentioned it first, and I'd like to breach the topic for a moment. I'm a pretty good catch," she winked, "but even _I_ have my flaws."

Vegeta gazed at her with dry humor.

"My disorganized way of working is one of them." She looked at him directly before gesturing to the cat curling up at her feet. "And Scratch is one of them."

He sidled forward slowly, hands in his pockets. "Is this the bed you had in high school?"

"Yes. Why?" She frowned.

He bumped his knee against the frame and smiled deviously when it made a knocking, squeaking racket.

He crawled across the bed to her, throwing each of her legs to the side and kissing her, lightly, teasingly, on her lower lip.

"I know you said you wanted me to move in, but there are just some things you have to realize before we go through with living with each other," she said from underneath him, hands on his chest, his open suit jacket draping and obscuring her. "Like, how cool are you with having a bag of chocolate in the bed at all times?" She had to angle her head further up so he could kiss her neck. "How cool are you with Scratch sleeping with us? Because he sleeps on my head. Can you deal with greasy light switches and car parts and computer hard drives just lying around for no apparent reason on occasion? Because that happens." He carefully tucked his hands into her curls and kissed her deeply, effectively quieting her. At her earliest opportunity, though he dragged his teeth down her neck and over her chest, she continued. "Can you tolerate me sometimes accidentally washing your chapstick in the washer? Will you be mad if I get up in the middle of the night to have a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and then when I stub my toe and wake you up yelling on the way back? Are you going to be okay if I lay on the couch on my free weekends and watch cartoons and never get dressed? Do you mind if I sing in the shower? Do you mind if your shower is covered in grease stains? These are the important things you need to consider before oooph—"

Vegeta had stood, leaving her to bounce lightly to a stand still with the disappearance of his bodyweight. She watched him pace uncertainly, before he turned with a startlingly evil grin. "How long do you think we have until your parents check up on us?"

"I don't know, maybe twenty minutes? Mom said she wanted to—heeeey." Bulma raised an eyebrow. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"There's something I've always wanted to do to you."

"What's that?" Bulma asked, voice growing weaker as Vegeta slowly, deliberately pulled off his suit jacket, laying it neatly on her dresser, and slowly, surely unbuttoned his shirt with a terrifying smirk.

As the shirt draped open, revealing a hard set of abs, Bulma looked between them—Vegeta, his abs, then Vegeta again—and swallowed.

His eyebrow cocked intimidatingly. "Shut you up."

* * *

Bunny smiled at her two guests, unsure why Bulma kept combing her fingers through her hair frantically and Vegeta kept checking to make sure his shirt was buttoned.

"So! I made chocolate cake! I hope you like it!"

"Who doesn't like chocolate, dear," Dr. Briefs mumbled from his newspaper.

"Oh, good question! Nobody, that's who!" Bunny scooped up an extra large slice of cake with the spatula and placed it on the china in front of Vegeta. "You know, I had a suitor in college once who didn't like chocolate," she whispered. "Let's just say our courtship didn't last very long!"

Bulma snorted into her coffee.

"So, Vegeta sweetie, Bulma said you're a lawyer. A, what do you call it." She put her finger to her lips and frowned deeply, thinking. "Environmental lawyer?"

Bulma chuckled, confronted with the image of Vegeta chaining himself to a tree to end deforestation. "No, Mom. His expertise lies in corporate law."

Her mother slid a healthy slice of chocolate cake onto Bulma's own plate and pursed her lips in thought. "Oh, how wonderful! Helping the poor and taxing corporations, right?" Bunny made a few exuberant punching motions. "Oh, you should go to one of my West City Democrats meetings with me sometime, Vegeta!"

Vegeta choked on his cake.

Bulma patted his hand supportively. "Yeah, I think he'd really like that! But he's been very busy preparing to open his own law practice."

"Oh, how fun! Isn't that fun, honey?" She turned to her husband.

"Yep," agreed Dr. Briefs from behind his newspaper, a puff of pipe tobacco smoke rising above his head.

"Dad," Bulma said, placing her fork onto her plate and giving the newspaper a look, "you might be interested to know what Vegeta drives."

Vegeta shifted uncomfortably and wondered why it mattered. So far the old man had spent the entire dinner behind his newspaper. Vegeta didn't really appreciate her trying to draw him out now. He sat straight in his chair, fork raised to cut into the moist cake that was so close to being a gastronomic memory.

Dr. Briefs remained behind his newspaper. "A Geo Metro? A Trans Am?" Bulma's father couldn't have been any more indifferent.

"What, you think this is Yamcha we're dealing with?" Bulma exclaimed with disdain. "He drives a Ghia and a second generation 911."

The newspaper slowly lowered, and Vegeta, finally, came face to face with the inimitable Dr. Briefs. His mustache hung over the corners of his lips and twitched with a life of their own. "Is that so?" The old man was giving him a suspicious look. Bulma nodded once, winking at Vegeta like they were sharing a joke.

Dr. Briefs eyes cut to Bulma. "Can he be trusted?"

Bulma shrugged. "That's your call."

"Tell me," Dr. Briefs said, leaning forward, making Vegeta stiffen, "when faced with an intake issue where your tachometer is reading below a normal rpm and you're not blowing any smoke, your compression low but your gas lines flowing, would you first check the oil pressure or check your valves?"

Vegeta blinked, before looking back and forth between Bulma and her father. Bulma was smiling, nodding encouragingly.

Vegeta stiffened, ears reddening, severely,  _profoundly_  disliking how nigh he was to humiliation. "I'd…check my valves?"

Dr. Briefs slapped the newspaper on the kitchen table. "I see, a man who works on his own cars. Color me surprised, as you seem quite stiff. Well, let's go, shall we?" He and Bulma stood as Vegeta stared at them in bewilderment.

Bunny pouted. "Oh, okay! Well, I'll make some more coffee and you can finish your cake when you come back!"

Bulma squeezed Vegeta's shoulder. He stood uncertainly.

"Welcome to the club," she smiled, squeezing his arm. "Ladies first." She gestured in front of her. Vegeta frowned at her nervously.

As Dr. Briefs led them down the stairs and through a series of underground tunnels, Bulma trailing behind the two men, Vegeta wondered more and more frequently whether he was about to become one of their experiments. It wasn't until the old man pressed his hand to a screen and a series of doors whooshed open that Vegeta realized just what kind of privilege they'd granted him.

He now stood inside the most top secret lab of a technology and engineering giant.

"The reason we asked you such a personal question about what kind of car you drove," Dr. Briefs drawled, leading them into the stark white interior, where a few dozen rocket engines were strewn along the lab floors, "is because Capsule Corporation is concerned with the most performative motors and the most fully realized ingenuity in our engineers. Bulma used to lead the research team, but has since prematurely retired," he explained, gesturing at Bulma, who walked slowly beside Vegeta, giving him a look he couldn't interpret. "She finds satisfaction, for the most part, in mastering small engines. Because we own our fair share of the stocks of some select automotive giants," he winked at her, "we don't hold it against her. The imports she's specialized in are, after all, pushing the industry in ways that other car manufacturers are not. Capsule Corporation invests a fair share of money into the industry, because we are primarily engine-people. But sometimes," Dr. Briefs pulled up next to a door and pushed a button, "we get to have a little fun with design, too."

The door opened upon a parking garage of the most expensive, most exclusive, most awe-inspiring cars that Vegeta had only ever seen attempted in a magazine or movie.

Bulma squeezed his hand and led him forward. "Because we are leading both the performance engine and the computer technology industry, we get gifts from manufacturers sometimes." She gestured at an insanely sleek silver race car, its body so low to the ground that it seemed to hover, its headlights fiercely angled. Vegeta could see his reflection in it from a dozen feet away.

Dr. Briefs bit his pipe, looking at it all nonchalantly. "Often we get conceptual works, or cars that we had a hand in in someway that will never see the light of day. And here they reside, an inspiration to continue pushing the limits of physics and industry."

"You should feel special," she said, winking. "No one else has ever been invited down here."

Vegeta stared at her, doe-eyed. "Special" didn't cover it.

"Yes," drawled Mr. Briefs. "The limit is a most exhilarating place to explore these days. Well, I better get back soon or your mother will drag me to her monthly West City Democrats meeting."

"I'm going to show Vegeta around a bit more before heading back up, if that's alright, Dad."

"Yes, dear. But don't be long, or your mother will have him knitting at her Book Club." Dr. Briefs eyes were a bright, clear blue, paler than Bulma's but twinkling with a similar humor.

"I'd like to avoid that," Vegeta asserted earnestly before he could stop himself.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure she just goes to show off her sugar cookie recipe," her father said dismissively. "Have no fear, my boy. Well, I should get back to the house. It's about feeding time for the animals. I'll let Bulma show you the rest." Her father piddled out the door, serenely puffing on his pipe.

Vegeta had never felt so absurdly out of his element, eyes roaming the vehicles in the vast white room, each its own dream made flesh in a blank space that knew no bounds but space and time.

Bulma grinned at him. "So, do you want to see  _my_  lab?"

"Your lab?" He managed. "I thought we were in it."

She shook her head, and without preamble, strode across the floor, pressing her own hand to a screen and leading him into a much smaller facility. The room was clinical—there was a space reserved for a cot and medical supplies, another grouped with a desk and computers, while the bulk of the room was fit with lab tables, bare and tidy.

A new and strange curiosity tugged at him. "Was this your work area when you worked here?"

"This has been my work area since as long as I can remember, actually." Bulma smiled over it all, hands on her hips authoritatively. "My father gave me a space of my own, partly to keep me safe while he worked and partly to keep me from taking apart or modifying his projects as he worked on them." She chuckled, looking up at him. "I come down here and hammer on things with him occasionally, when he needs help. Sometimes the board of engineers will meet down here and we'll eat chicken wings, watch movies and brainstorm." She shrugged. "I don't get down here as much I used to."

"Bulma." Vegeta watched her with intent assessment. "Why are you fixing beaters in the West Bottoms?"

"Huh?" Her eyes widened quizzically.

"Why didn't you stay at Capsule Corporation?" He looked around, aghast. "Why leave this?"

"Well, I got bored of it, honestly. Not necessarily bored with it," she clarified, chewing her lip, "but I grew up here. I wanted to explore new things. That's why I went back to school."

Vegeta was still regarding her with disbelief.

"To become an attorney," he answered deadpan.

"To do something different." She said uncertainly. "To do something challenging."

"And fixing imported beaters is challenging."

They stared at one another carefully under the fluorescent lights.

"It's fun." She finally gave him.

"But is it challenging."

She narrowed her eyes, folding her arms over her chest. "What are you trying to say, Vegeta no'Ouji?"

In a rare moment of openness, alone in the white silence of a secret basement laboratory, Vegeta shrugged, moving back to the sprawling room of automotives. "Why not work directly for the manufacturer?" He looked over his shoulder as she strode behind him, frowning.

"I wouldn't want to, honestly. I'd rather fix them and appreciate their idiosyncrasies for what they're worth."

He didn't say anything else. He was beginning to understand something about her.

"Let's go eat chocolate cake," he asserted.

"Mmm, good call." Bulma hooked her arm in his. He stiffened uncomfortably, but down here, just the two of them, he let her have her affections. Her PDA was always unnerving, but having to small talk with the parents of the woman he was intimate with and eat dinner with a loving family was much more new and challenging. It was a weekend for personal challenges, apparently.

"Why did your mother make both chocolate cake and all those pies?" He blurted out.

The door whooshed shut behind them, and she led them slowly back through the room, grinning. "I suppose she saw how muscley you are and assumed you ate as much as Goku." She chortled at his confusion. "We've hosted Goku many times. He eats like he'll never get to eat again."

Vegeta bristled. For an insane second, he thought of asking her if they could do this again next weekend, just so he could top the number of Goku's visits.

It wasn't until too late that he realized she had come to a stop, fixing him with a flirtatious look that spelled trouble."So, I know that you have intimate knowledge of the carpet threads in my bus," she purred, grabbing at his hand and putting her fingers through it. "But how would you like to know what it feels like to be naked up against a concept Mercedes?" She was already sinking to her knees, winking up at him as she tugged the belt from his pant loops.

"Are you insane?" He hissed, grabbing for his belt. "This is a very expensive vehicle, and surely someone is watching on the one of several cameras I see around here!" He pointed frantically at the ceiling.

She rolled her eyes and rested her forehead on his crotch wearily, before standing and dragging him back into her office. She walked him into her desk until his back knocked against it.

"They're closed loop circuits. Cut loose every once in awhile, Vegeta," she said against his neck, running her palms down his front as she sank to her knees on the office pile. "If it makes you feel better, there are none in here." Her fingers adeptly unbuttoned him. A breath escaped from her lips as she drew him out from under his clothes. "Let a girl put you in her mouth without complaining about it."

Vegeta grit his teeth.

She was a madwoman.

She was a woman that, damnably, had to see, touch, and hear everything for herself to be satisfied with life. She was confident and adventurous and unashamedly pleasure seeking.

For the briefest moment—for the first time in a long time—Vegeta no'Ouji felt an overwhelming, gripping pleasure, not just at the hot, wet mouth that began its slow journey sliding up his hardening member, but a sweet thrill, a wantoness that stemmed from another person's company other than himself.

"Don't stop," he whispered, burying his hands in her hair as her lips met the base of his heavy cock, her tongue winding over the tip of him over and over, gripping his hard hips as she let him set the pace, tangling him in desire before it spilled into her with absolute relief.

* * *

Vegeta's passenger seat was brimming with pies.

Bulma finished rearranging them so they wouldn't spill and delicately shut the passenger side door, glancing once more through the window to make sure none of them had toppled.

Her mother stood at the front of his car, hands clasped, beaming, though mouth pulling south with a touch of melancholy. "Oh, Vegeta, honey, I wish this day would never end!"

Bulma sauntered up to them, arms folded as she regarded them both with a warm smile.

"Thank you for having me," Vegeta said automatically. He held out his hand but was reminded when Bunny pulled him into a fierce hug of this family's infernal desire for affection.

"I hope you got enough to eat!" She stomped her heels on the pavement dramatically after letting him go. "At least you'll have leftovers if you get hungry tonight!"

He glanced at his car, where several days worth of desserts awaited him.

"Well, goodbye now! Congratulations on the opening of your law office! Go fight some bad guys!" She punched the air with small fists a few times and then waved goodbye as she walked up the steps shakily on her heels.

Vegeta stood blinking.

Bulma edged close to him, smiling up at him as she brushed against his chest with her folded arms, brushing her lips against his own.

"Well done, sir." She pressed her lips against his slowly, relishing him. "I'm going to stop by the shop real quick. I left some documents there that I need done by Monday. It shouldn't be too long. What are you going to do?"

Against his will, his arm snaked across her waist, pulling her closer. "As bizarre as it sounds with all this food in my car, I need to go pick up some things at the store."

"I'll meet you back at your place then?"

He made an agreeing sound. She smelled like him, and sex, and good food, and a jolt of possessiveness ached in him.

"Don't be late," he warned.

She pulled back. "Yes, dad." She chuckled, turning away. "See you soon, homeboy."

Vegeta slid into the leather seat and took a moment to breathe before turning the key over.

He had gotten in way over his head.

* * *

He'd picked it up at the grocery store on a whim.

Vegeta had tossed it onto the self-checkout conveyor belt, snatched it up, and thrust it into his grocery bag before anyone could notice. He'd then marched out of the grocery store with flushed cheeks, pinning anyone who looked at him with a furious mien. Just as quickly, he plucked it from the bag once safe in his car and gazed at the cover. Then he threw it back down onto the car's carpeted floor. He felt dirty having paid for it, sick for even looking at it.

When he'd gotten home, he'd put his groceries away, fighting the urge to sit down with it. Once it was all that was left, he sat down heavily at his kitchen table and stared at the back of it.

He was a fool. He flicked it across the table with annoyance and pulled the rotisserie chicken toward him, digging into the meat with his fork.

He ate his pre-workout meal in silence. Bulma had messaged him to let him know she'd be home late, so he was alone tonight—a strange reversal of positions. Now, with time to think about something other than work, he found himself somewhat lonely, and uneasy with it.

He scraped his plate and rinsed it, then snatched it off the table and stared at the front page.

He couldn't believe himself.

The West City tabloids.

He shook his head and scoffed out loud.

When had he ever picked one of these up? Never. He thought he had his pride, but it seemed he had sank to a new low this evening. His recreational reading was usually limited to the stock reports and the business section of the newspaper. He couldn't care less about a bunch of mediocre actors and celebrities whose principles were limited to how white their teeth gleamed. He wasn't a stranger to picking up GQ and Sports Car Exclusives occasionally, but that was different. He needed reading material for the firm's clients, that he just happened to get to read first.

The West City Barker wasn't necessarily all tabloid—it had a home decorating section, and a West City news section—but it definitely drew its market on gossip.

Inside, he warred with himself. He'd already bought it, why lower himself further by reading it?

Because there, on the cover, was a picture of he and Bulma at the car show.

She made him catch his breath, as reluctant as he was to admit that she had that much an impact on him—her generous smile, the dazzling degree of her curves, her hard-won self-assurance. But she was exceptionally beautiful in the photo because she was really  _smiling_  as she clung to his arm. She simply looked happy to be beside him in front of her work. She was channeling, appropriately, Rosie the Riveter on the arm, curiously, of a sophisticated professional. Himself.

He was so used to catching her in her work coveralls that her clean outfit made him acutely aware he'd never seen her legitimately dressed up—the leather dress and Chi Chi's too-tight work shirt notwithstanding. She was…alluring…but not in the manner that he'd always thought women should be. He was no stranger to beautiful women, women in sling back heels with long, expensively treated hair and expertly displayed cleavage and small, sinewy frames. He'd always thought of them like an accessory, like cuff links or a sleek tie, one whose job was specific, usable, and uncomplicated.

And then there was the problem of himself. He was standing tall beside her, arm behind her back, a well-tailored escort smirking down at her pale, heart-shaped face. He'd been caught joking with her, and it made him uncomfortable to behold, a dark, sleek figure cut against the Bus and the Beetle gleaming behind them, smiling down at a creative mind that could obliterate the engineering and technology field as they knew it. And yet, there she was, at a mildly publicized car show, shaking hands with people Vegeta would never care to associate with in his life, talking about an engine that last had life decades ago.

The cover read "Capsule Corp Heiress And Mystery Man—The Scoop On Bulma Briefs' Past Ten Years and the Hottie On The Princess of West City's Arm."

He thrust it away from himself and gulped down his bottle of water.

Then scooted it back in front of him with the edge of his palm.

Even as a cacophony of emotions pulled at him— one which was no less than a preening smugness—he reassured himself that this was  _not_  pleasure. This was the cool, hard stare of a professional gleaning information. He was a master at the objective eye, smoothly surveying his body as he built it one thorough workout at a time, ordistantly reviewing the case and clients in front of him.

Vegeta flipped to the article with little restraint.

A few paragraphs in and it was apparent the publication had no information about him, only indicating that he was in a high profile position. That, he could probably contribute to Bulma's dissembling with the media, and her probably assuming (correctly) that he'd rather have his privacy protected. When asked, it was clear she hadn't ruptured his privacy. He was simply "a friend who's plenty busy with his own achievements." Something about the way she worded it made him both proud and annoyed.

But it sure had enough on Bulma—it announced that the heiress, who'd been mysteriously out of the limelight for years since winning the Peabody award, had been operating a car repair shop in the West Bottoms the last few years. It spoke of her fight against the Freeman case, other charitable works he hadn't known she had her hand in, and her courtesy post on both the city council and as a professor emeritus at West City Uni. It spoke briefly about her continued work off the table for Capsule Corp, citing her at the end as a recent nominee for West City's Most Successful Woman and Philanthropic Resident.

The last picture in the article was her laughing with another man, some show goer nobody, with the caption: "Off the table for good? There's no ring on it! West City's most eligible bachelorette may still be single!"

He snorted, smirking waspishly. "You wish, you bastards."

She had become a symbol of power, and as he stared down at her lovely face beside his own, it ignited an idea in Vegeta.

Vegeta grabbed another water and went to his gym. He loaded several plates on the bar and didn't stop until his legs were shaking.

* * *

She'd came in about midnight, covered in grease with a backpack slung over her arm. She'd smiled at him tiredly, kissed his sweaty cheek as he blended a protein shake, and swatted his rear before walking away. He cut her an annoyed look as he gulped down the shake but she was already making her way down the hallway.

He mopped his face with the hand towel once more and trailed behind her into his room just as the shower turned on. She was closing the shower door just as he prowled behind her and snapped it back open.

She jumped, glaring angrily at him through the water. He was already closing the door behind him, his bulky musculature taking up its fair share of the tub.

"You're in my spot," he complained, grabbing for the bar of soap. "It's leg day and I have need of a shower."

She narrowed her eyes at him and grabbed for the shampoo she'd bravely left in his shower.

She should have known that as soon as she closed her eyes to avoid soap in them that he'd palm her breasts.

"What took you so long," he griped.

"I wanted to get a car out of the shop that had been there too long, and I had some paperwork to finish." She sighed with exasperation. "I'm so happy tomorrow is Sunday." She began rinsing her hair, and Vegeta got the pleasure of watching her breasts arch towards him as she leaned back into the water. "And don't try me, mister. I've spent more than my fair share waiting for you to get home. I'm a working woman, you know. I'm no trophy wife."

She felt his mouth close slowly over her nipple and hissed, wiping water from her eyes.

She made herself as flat as she could to slide past him and give him the water. He was already soaping up his thick hair.

"They don't tell you how hard it is to shower with someone," she mumbled, picking up the bar of soap and scrubbing at the grease in her fingernails. "So tomorrow is the last day before the big one, huh?" She watched him scrub at the soap in his hair under the water, all chest and biceps, and smirked, trailing her finger down the line in the center of him. God he was hot.

One eye squinted open and watched her. "Yes."

He felt her grab his member and his eye shot open again as he rinsed his hair of soap. She was smiling at him, curls stubbornly clinging damply against her face. She squeezed him and he glared at her, pretending to be unaffected as he slowly hardened in her grip.

"Are you excited?"

"I don't know," he replied dryly. "You tell me." His eyes flicked down at his groin.

"I mean about your first day at your own firm," she said with exasperation. "How's it feel to be the eponymous Vegeta of Ouji and Associates?" Her hands splayed in the air dramatically.

He yanked her to him, his hard member pressing against her lower stomach. "It's going to feel wonderful," he responded with dripping intention, soaping her up and letting the water run over her as slick as his hands sliding across her wet skin.

She made a noise quietly in the back of her throat, laying her head on his shoulder as he washed her...and then just as quickly the water shut off, leaving her alone in the tub.

Her brows clashed together.

She went to step out of the shower and a towel smacked her in the face.

"Have you eaten?" He asked, already striding out of the steamy bathroom.

"No," she groused, wringing out her hair in the towel.

"There's chicken in the fridge. Go eat and get back here before I fall asleep."

"Yes, master," she agreed begrudgingly, throwing on an oversized Snoopy shirt and shuffling down the hall.

She pulled the rotisserie chicken out with both hands and grabbed for the mayo, spreading it on some white bread tiredly. As she chomped, her back against the counters, the apartment at midnight quiet and empty, her eyes grazed across a key on the kitchen island. She stared at it sleepily, chewing.

"It's yours."

She startled. Vegeta stood at the edge of the kitchen and the hallway, his sweatpants deliciously hugging the tops of his hip bones, making her acutely aware that he was wearing nothing underneath. Her eyes kept drawing to them.

"Huh? What?"

His eyes flicked down at the key. "The key. I had it made this evening at the store."

Her chewing slowed to a halt. "You're giving me a key to your apartment?" She needed clarification.

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "Do I need to spell it out for you?"

She chewed the remaining bite of her sandwich and wiped her fingers. "Okay," she said uncertainly.

"I won't have to leave my door unlocked for you anymore." His head bowed as he stared at the ground before her, avoiding meeting her eyes, making the divots in his collar bones shadowed. "Although that doesn't seem to stop the stupidest among us from breaking and entering."

"Okay," she replied again agreeably, walking past him.

"Is that it?" He snapped behind her with agitation. She smiled as she entered his room, throwing herself onto his bed with a groan.

"Yep," she muttered into the pillow.

"Bulma," she heard disapprovingly from above her. "There's something else."

She rolled just enough to peek up at him through her damp hair in the lamp light. "Yes?"

"I've secured the remainder of the staff, two highly competent legal secretaries and two receptionists. Raditz took care of the clerks and assistants last week."

"They don't include Fasha, do they?"

"No."

"Oh, good."

"With the opening on Monday and the growth of the staff, I'll be hosting a small get together this upcoming Saturday night. I'd like you to be there."

Her sleepy eyes opened. "What kind of get together?" Her wary voice was muffled through the pillow.

There was a suspicious pause. "A nice one."

Bulma cringed. "I have to look nice, is what you're saying to me."

"Yes."

She sighed. "Your lack of faith in my choice of fashion is amusing."

"It will a press event." Though he was taut with anticipation, he masked it with well-practiced control.

Her eyes widened. "Oh." She glanced up at him. "So I really have to look good."

"Bulma, I won't lie to you. This is much more marketing than it is celebratory." He paused, waiting for a reaction. "Please assure me you clean up all right."

She punched him sleepily. "Look, kid, I'll take care of it. I won't embarrass you."

"I'll be there early, so you will have to arrive on your own. Please be punctual."

"I'm always punctual."

She heard a snort and realized her eyes had closed again.

"Vegeta-kun, I'm tired," she mumbled into the pillow.

He sighed and she distantly heard the lamp shut off.

He slid in and pressed himself against her back.

Just as he thought she was unresponsive and asleep, she wiggled, getting closer to him. "Thank you for trusting me with a key to your home. I'll try to make as little mess as possible."

He watched her round shoulder rise and fall with deep, even breaths.

For the first time in their relationship, Vegeta deliberately pulled her close, resting his chin on top of her head, unsure if he was doing 'this' right, if it was supposed to be like this.

"Don't screw it up," he rumbled affectionately.

He thought he heard her blow a strawberry.

Nope—

It was just a snore.

* * *

"I thought we had agreed that you would make as little mess as possible?" Vegeta seethed in the doorway.

Bulma finished tightening the bolt leisurely before shoving her safety glasses onto her head.

"Your espresso machine was broken." She said it matter-of-factly before the wide array of nuts, bolts, and metal parts scattered in front of her on the kitchen table. "Hey there—didn't you just work out last night?" She frowned, looking over him as he sweat—and tried counting to ten—in the hallway. He didn't answer—just kept staring at her with bewilderment. "Haven't you ever heard of a rest day?" She snapped her safety goggles back on and, to his absolute horror, ignited the flame to a welding torch with the hollow snapping of the striker. Flames burst from the nozzle until the flame defined blue.

While sitting at his kitchen table.

"What are you doing?" He hollered.

"Fixing your damned espresso machine," she grumbled, even knowing he couldn't hear her over the spray of the acetylene. "Espresso isn't even that great. Now I regret even trying to make some for breakfast. I mean, all you get is a tiny cup of sour coffee. What's up with that."

Vegeta didn't hear a word she was saying over his panicked frustration.

"You're lucky I even carry one of these portable welders on me." She reached over and slowly turned off the oxygen. She sat everything down beside her and shoved her glasses back up. "There ya go—your hoity-toity espresso maker wasn't flush on the back side seam. I fixed that for you." She swept some of the nuts and bolts up with the butt of her hand and began piecing it back together. "Have you checked your phone this morning?"

He was still watching her in the doorway. "No," he finally said reluctantly, making his way slowly into the kitchen as if something might blow up.

"Goku sent me a text about a half hour ago." She set a screw between her lips as she swiftly drilled them into the frame of the espresso machine. "He wants us to go to his game tonight."

Vegeta opened the fridge and grabbed for the gallon of milk. He scoffed. "I don't think so." He tipped the gallon and began gulping.

"He made it sound pretty important. It's the last game of the season—the playoffs. And he practically begged me to be there. Listen to this text." Bulma jerked her finger over the screen of her phone. "'Are you doing anything tonight' exclamation mark exclamation mark exclamation mark exclamation mark exclamation mark…"

He smirked. "Go on."

"There are about that many question marks, too. I reply: What's up? Goku replies—all caps—please please please please please please please please please—these are all spelled P-L-Z—please come to the game tonight. It's for Chi Chi." Bulma looked up at him thoughtfully.

Vegeta placed the milk back into the fridge and grabbed for the tub of strawberries. He pulled out the seat beside her and threw himself back into it.

"It's my day off," he reminded her, biting it down to the leaf and chewing.

A pale hand snuck past him and plucked up one of the strawberries from his lap. He cut her a look. She was chewing a small bite thoughtfully. "I think this is important." She leaned back and threw the stem into the trash can and continued working. The damned thing was already more than halfway put back together. "I think we need to be there."

"You, maybe."

Her eyes flicked to him with heat. "You'd leave me alone on your one day off?" Her tone was accusing. "Some boyfriend."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm not a 'boyfriend.' I thought we agreed to that." He was biting into two strawberries at a time.

"Ah, that's right. We settled on slampiece."

Vegeta sent her a look that dared her to call him her slampiece in front of someone.

Bulma smirked victoriously as she snuck another strawberry out from under him. "You're my boyfriend until they come up with a more dignified term to describe you." Her emphasis on dignified made it clear she thought him anything but.

He really wasn't winning any battles this weekend.

She pushed the chair back with her feet and held out the espresso maker. "There. See? No harm done."

"Was it not working or something?"

"No, it worked fine. I just couldn't stand to make espresso from a machine with uneven sides." She placed it carefully back onto the counter. "Now." She brushed her hands off on each other.

Vegeta surveyed her from the corner of his eyes. She was only wearing panties, a cropped shirt, and her safety glasses poised precariously on her head.

"The game's at 4. What do you say we make an early lunch, go catch a movie, and then head to the game for brats and beer?" She shrugged, palms outward with a plea.

"I don't do movies," he groused, but his eyes flicked again to her hips, where her ratty white panties clung for their life.

"Off 39th is Classic Cinema. I used to go every Tuesday night until all the summer work hit." She was bending down into his fridge now, and he was standing, as if pulled by a magnet. "They show off-beat films. Do you have any plans for this leftover roast? I'll make french dip sandwiches, if not—hey!"

Vegeta's hands were clutching her hips.

"Do you want food or not?" She tried bartering.

"Not with this wiggling around in my face."

"This is the only day we have together for awhile. We have to make the most of it!" She wailed.

She couldn't see the smile crooking up his dastardly face, but she felt his mood descend over them through the firm grip on her hips and knew it meant no good.

"Why not spend it in bed? I'll count it as my 'active rest day.'"

She squirmed in his arms until she was facing him. She waved the mustard bottle in his face. "You and I, sir, have very different definitions of rest days."

His smile grew in size.

She sighed. "Look. I'll cut you a deal. Goku wants us to be there—"

"I don't care what he wants."

"Well, _I_ want us to be there—"

Vegeta sighed noisily.

"And so we're going. But!" She raised her hand. "I will allow you one free…'active rest day'…today. Lots of sex. But! Wait wait wait!" Vegeta was already dragging her away from the refrigerator. She held onto his shoulders desperately. "You have to let me call you Yoko."

Vegeta's face fell and he threw her over his shoulder.

Bulma's laugh was punctuated each time he took a step and his shoulder dug into her stomach. "For the record, John and Paul already had their differences. Just 'baby,' then? Or does that come with the diapers and drool?" She burst into giggles against his back. "Or how 'bout my 'boo?' Like a sexy ghost."

"It's no wonder you get along so well with my idiot friends!" He roared, throwing her onto the bed. "You're lucky I like you." He ripped the underwear from her hips down her legs and tossed it over his shoulder.

"OooOooh." Her eyes lit up mischievously. "What a declaration of affection."

He fell, catching himself on his hands on each side of her. His sly smile was a little alarming. "Do you like it when I talk dirty to you?"

Her eyes widened. "Well, sure—"

Vegeta's face lit with gleeful, sinister intent.

"Then you're going to like what I'm about to do to you. A lot."

Bulma felt her stomach sink. "Oh boy," she squeaked.

* * *

She and Vegeta sat behind the dugout as the end of the season's crowd cheered around them. She'd grabbed both her hoodie and her leather jacket before they'd left and was glad she did; as the sun sunk into the violet cloud cover of early Fall, it left the air crisp and earthy. It was the final inning, and Nappa had already passed out in the bleachers behind them, several bottles strewn around him. Sometimes he was so embarrassing to be around.

Raditz sat beside him, nursing a beer sullenly. Since resigning from Vejita Bardock and Sons, he hadn't seemed himself, and she was beginning to worry about him. When was the last time he'd called her to have her pick him up off the curb? She almost missed it.

Vegeta was acting strange as well. Though he was in a good enough mood—and better be, damnet, given how great the sex had been this afternoon—his sharp edged humor was beginning to dwindle and a cloud was forming over him. She worried he was becoming nervous about the firm's first day tomorrow. She knew it was taking every ounce of strength to remain here with her and not shoot off for any last minute preparations for tomorrow. She had always admired his ability to tolerate the stresses of his work life, but even Vegeta had his limits, even if he wasn't aware of them.

Vegeta looked at his watch again for the umpteenth time. He was not a public affection kind of guy, but he stood beside her as she sat on the bleachers anyway.

It was only the third inning.

He needed something to take his mind off of tomorrow, and a ballgame just wasn't doing it for him.

"Wanna go grab something to eat?" She turned toward him nonchalantly. He nodded, and so she hopped off the bleachers, swinging by Chi Chi, who had sprawled as elegantly as a pregnant woman could on the lowest bleacher.

"We're going to go grab a bite to eat. We'll be right back!"

"Yeah, yeah." Chi Chi waved her dismissively. "Just don't take too long. Vegeta can't possibly last that long, can he?" Her eyes slid to Vegeta as she sniffed.

He straightened. "What?"

"We're just grabbing brats. I don't think I could handle any more humping today. We'll be back!" She called over her shoulder, waving as she dragged Vegeta away.

"I last longer than a few minutes," he scoffed, clearly agitated as they fell in step together.

She looked at him with puzzled comedy. "Wow, that comment really did a number on you, huh? You're fine. You do fine." She pat his back supportively, much to his chagrin. "You last way too long, in my opinion, for someone with as great a skill in bed as you have." Her hands went mournfully to her chest, evoking melancholy. "I mean, I'm not going to last very long under you, that's for sure."

"Hmph." Vegeta smiled proudly beside her.

"Gosh, I'm hungry." They filed in behind a small line of people waiting for their hotdogs and sodas. "I bet I burned something like nine thousand calories this afternoon." She glared at him accusingly.

"Likely  _over_  nine thousand," he smirked devilishly.

She kissed his cheek and focused on the menu above the grill. No sooner than she'd decided that she wanted all of a brat, a beer, a soda, an ice cream, cheese fries, and a pretzel, but wasn't sure how she was going to carry it all back to her seat, she felt Vegeta's hand clench around her upper arm.

She glanced at him in alarm and saw he was watching the last people in the world she wanted to see.

Fasha and Yamcha stood a few feet from them, watching them with hot dogs and drinks in hand. They both stood as if they knew they had to say hello but weren't comfortable doing so. Well, Fasha looked like she was getting a bit more pleasure out of it then necessary.

"Hello," Fasha purred, and Bulma wanted to rabidly claw her face off.

"How's it going," Yamcha muttered.

She glanced immediately at his casual attire.

"They benched me tonight," Yamcha explained, understanding her look.

"Oh." She emitted. She thought she replied, anyway. Her heart was beating fast but no oxygen was getting to her brain.

"So, uh. You're a thing, now?" Yamcha pointed awkwardly between her and Vegeta, his grip on her arm and the lack of space between them, unsure how to address it.

Bulma's eyes widened. Oh yeah. He must have remembered Vegeta as the guy that socked him at the pizza restaurant.

She felt Vegeta pull her close protectively. Evidently he was taking "my main squeeze" literally, because she was having trouble drawing air.

"Indeed." Vegeta's voice was cold, turning back to the menu dismissively. "Though I fail to see how it's any of your business."

"Sure, I guess. Was just wondering." Yamcha appeared more and more baffled by the second. "Well, we better get back to the game. It's an important one, you know."

Bulma tried to be adult and smile and say goodbye but was having a hard time of it. "Go break a leg," she said dumbly.

The pair stared at her for only a brief second before walking back to the stands.

Bulma's eyes widened and she looked at Vegeta with a slanted smile. "Whoops. I think that was the wrong expression."

Vegeta's face had grown dark.

"What?"

He didn't stop scowling at the menu.

"Nothing."

"What? Tell me."

"Can I help you?"

The sound of the cashier's voice briefly pulled her from her worry about the stormy man beside her. "Yes, I'll take a pretzel, a brat, and a beer, please."

Vegeta's hand closed around hers as she slid a ten from her wallet. "Triple that," he commanded the boy, and slid a card across the formica with his fingers.

"You don't have to pay for me," she muttered into his ear, frowning.

"Get used to it," he stated.

"Not happening," she argued before taking the bags of food from the cashier.

They walked back to the stands in silence. As she made her way carefully down the stairs, she glanced back at him. "Is something wrong?" She frowned with concern.

"I'll be right back." He didn't even look at her as he set their beers down on the bleachers and strode off.

Her face crumpled even further, and she scowled at the beers, settling instead to sit beside Chi Chi.

She let out a breath under the weight of their food. "Want some?"

Chi Chi's face lit up. "What do you have?"

The women shuffled through the paper bags and tore into the pretzels first, chewing quietly.

"Where's Vegeta?"

Bulma frowned again. "I don't know. I think he might be nervous about the firm's grand opening tomorrow." She sighed. "Geez. You have sex all afternoon with a guy and he repays you like this."

Chi Chi sent her a look in commiseration. "That's how I feel," she chirped, gesturing at her stomach.

Bulma watched through the fence as Goku wound up and then sent a curve ball straight through the center of home plate. Chi Chi yelled in support. Now past the sick phase, Chi Chi was finally glowing. Her face had gotten a bit rounder, her cheeks were flushed, and her long black hair had become even more lustrous. She'd already regaled Bulma with excitement that her normally flat chest had filled out exponentially, something she and Goku were really enjoying together. Under her pea coat was a blouse that drew over her belly just enough that, from the right angle, Chi Chi was finally visibly pregnant.

Bulma should be happy, and she was, really. But something was niggling at her now. There was a tense undertow to the night, and it all originated with the brooding man who was supposed to be sitting next to her.

Bulma glanced around her, biting into her bratwurst smothered in onions and mustard. And glanced around again, and again. Nappa was snoozing with his hands behind his head, and neither Vegeta nor Raditz were anywhere to be seen.

She glanced at her phone. She surveyed the stands around her. As the innings dragged on, her concern simmered into anger.

She sat with her hood pulled up, watching the game with a great amount of boredom and restrained ire, glancing at Chi Chi occasionally, who had stood to press herself against the fence beside the dug out.

Just then, there was the sharp crack of a bat, and the crowd gasped. Bulma's eyes widened. The batter had smacked the ball into left field—Yamcha's territory, though someone else played there tonight—where another Titan scooped it off the ground and threw it back to short stop. They all watched with baited breath as the batter ran through third base a swift second before the third baseman caught it. The runner was sprinting down the line now, the catcher readying himself for both the ball flying toward him and the batter running full force at him, when the catcher dropped the ball…

and Goku scooped it up, charging into home just as the batter came sliding through, and the umpire screamed "You're out!" and everyone stood and cheered.

Bulma ran for Chi Chi, throwing her arms around her and jumping up and down with her as the Titans picked Goku up on their shoulders.

After a few moments of raucous excitement, the radio station DJ's came out with their microphones to talk to Goku, and Bulma and Chi Chi shared an excited look. The conversation was broadcasted over the speakers, and they giggled when a humble and maybe slightly confused Goku acted like he hadn't done anything spectacular.

The announcer turned away. "Well, that's it, folks—"

"Wait, sir." Goku grabbed the man's sleeve. "Please. Can you just wait a second?" He held a finger up.

The announcer blinked behind his sunglasses, nodding.

Bulma and Chi Chi watched with confusion as Goku ran towards them and into the dugout beside them, grabbing something from his duffle bag, before reaching for Chi Chi and pulling her by her hand to the pitcher's mound.

Bulma watched, puzzled.

"Well, folks, it looks like the Titan's star pitcher has brought a friend back out here with him, a very pretty friend, and, Son Goku, is there something else you wanted to say?"

"Yes," he said into the mic, before turning to Chi Chi, and Bulma gasped loudly.

Goku dropped to one knee, and the DJ, startled, followed him with the mic.

"Ohmygod," Bulma breathed, and she watched as Chi Chi muttered it in tandem.

"Chi Chi," Goku began into the mic, gazing up at her, "you're always there for me through thick and thin, and I, like many men, sometimes forget all that you do for me." There was a chuckle in the crowd. "I'm not always sure what choices to make, what shoes look good with what pants or what even to eat for dinner tonight"—another chuckle—"but I've always known that there wasn't any other woman for me but you since the day we met."

Bulma pressed her face up against the fence with an adoring smile.

"Chi Chi, you're the strongest, most caring woman I've ever met. You also cook the best dumplings." The crowd laughed, and Bulma did, too. "And that's why—" Goku pulled something from his pocket, and people whistled and whooped encouragingly—"I was wondering if you'd be my wife."

Bulma watched through watery eyes as Chi Chi's hands flew to her mouth, and she nodded, eyes watering over, and the crowd heard her faintly through the mic, "Yes," before the bleachers erupted into cheers and clapping.

Goku stood and pulled her into a tight embrace, rocking her, and the rest of the Titans patted him on the back and congratulated them. Unable to do anything less, Bulma jogged onto the field in the pandemonium.

Krillin was shaking hands with Goku, and Bulma put her hand on Chi Chi's shoulder. Chi Chi turned, tears streaming down her face, and clasped Bulma into a big hug. They bounced around like that for a moment, and then Bulma grappled Goku and gave him one, too.

Though Vegeta had just sat down, he immediately recoiled. He knew that perfume from a mile away.

Fasha slid into the bleachers beside Vegeta as he watched it all.

Vegeta's eyes slid to the woman beside him. "Get lost, Fasha."

"Look, I know you're all grown up now." She smiled as if they were sharing a joke. "Playing house, of all things." She rolled her eyes without it diminishing her smugness. "But we both know that's not going to last." She smiled at him, an galling action in its familiarity. "You're not that kind of man."

"I see through you, Fasha." He scowled, refusing to look at her. "Why are you even here?"

"My date plays for the losing team." She smiled. "Whatever. I won't be losing tonight, at least."

She kissed his cheek and stood, earning a thunderous growl that she ignored. She knew Vegeta wouldn't hit a woman or damage his image in public. She had nothing to fear from him, now or later. "Well. I'm not saying I'm the better woman. It's not like that. It's just, I've known you a long time, and I hate to see you go out like this."

Vegeta was deeply offended she'd act like she understood him better than himself. He knew her angle. She thought that he was still attracted to her, though he had never been less attracted to anyone in his life. He'd been more infatuated with Bulma when he'd first bumped into her in a crowd than he could ever be with Fasha.

"If you don't get far away from me, I will end you." He finally looked at her with deep seriousness. "You'll never practice law in this town again."

She shrugged. "Your dirty talk never scared me, Vegeta."

He crossed his arms, black gaze locked on Fasha's own with crackling energy.

Yamcha stood, a few bleachers away, watching it all.

He and Vegeta met eyes.

* * *

Bulma's arms were folded as she looked out the window.

He sighed.

It was clear she was furious. She'd spent the last fifteen minutes silently staring out the window, slouching with her arms folded over her chest.

Vegeta glanced once more at her from the driver's side of the Ghia. "I had my reasons," he finally said.

"Care to explain?" She hadn't looked at him yet.

"No."

"I thought so."

He didn't like feeling like he was in the wrong. He angrily chewed over his thoughts. "Look. Use that head of yours for a second. Why would Fasha still be in West City?"

Bulma looked at him incredulously. "Because she's an idiot."

"No," Vegeta reluctantly disagreed. "I invited her here for an interview. She lives in East City. Why would she have remained here past that day?"

He could tell at first Bulma was reluctant to participate, but soon the gears in her head were clearly turning. "It's been weeks."

"Yes."

Her voice became uncertain. "How do we not know she's just visiting? On her date with Yamcha." She made puking sounds.

"Because this isn't the first time we've encountered her since that day."

"It's not?" She asked surprised.

"Raditz had a run in with her shortly after, and Nappa has seen her twice at Czar Bar."

Finally, Bulma turned to him. They shared a wide eyed look.

"She's living here."

"Yes," agreed Vegeta.

"That means…." Bulma's mouth opened. She grabbed for her phone and then cursed. "I shouldn't bother Chi Chi."

"There's no need. I've already checked." Vegeta looked out over his steering wheel before turning to her. "She's working at my father's firm."

A hundred emotions flew over Bulma's face, but the one that settled was anger. "What the hell!" She yelled into the dark car. She turned back to him. "Is that why you took Raditz?"

"I didn't take Raditz anywhere," he said with confusion.

"You mean Raditz wasn't with you tonight?"

"No," Vegeta stated with some belligerence.

"Then where was he?"

Vegeta shrugged. He could have been anywhere. Who cared. "The real question is, when was she employed?" Vegeta's voice took on an edge of conniving. "All of the phone calls I was able to place led me to Bardock Vejita and Sons, but I couldn't turn up any more than that."

"I bet I could find something." She frowned with determination. "I wasn't a teenage hacker for nothing, you know."

"You were a hacker," he asked flatly.

Bulma smiled. "Capsule Corp is an engineering and technology giant. Just because I like to tinker with small machines doesn't mean I'm not equipped to take down a website or two."

He was giving her a strange look.

"See? Having me around isn't so bad," she posed, looking out the window again. "Next time, just let me in on what's going on. I thought you bailed on me." She looked at him, eyes bright in the dark. "On our one day together."

He shifted uncomfortably.

* * *

He was watching over her shoulder as she did unknown things to his laptop.

"It's going to work again after this, right?" He asked for the third time.

"Yes, geez," she said exasperated. "People who don't understand how computers work. They're like talking to an old person about contemporary music. 'What?' 'Huh?' 'Say that again?' 'But back in my day…'"

"I'm not old!" He seethed.

"You're just going to have to trust me that I'm not peeking through your folders." She winked at him. "Probably lots of sexy pictures of ladies dressed like mechanics, am I right?"

Vegeta colored, setting his jaw.

She turned back to the screen. "I'm not good at everything," she argued, although it sounded half-convinced. "I may be incredibly smart and intoxicatingly beautiful," she smiled at him once more, "and I may be able to hack into your father's website, but there still are some things even _I_  can't do."

"Yeah, like pick up after yourself," he griped, bending down and throwing her jeans into the hamper. The woman couldn't last five minutes at his house without taking her pants off.

She glared at him before turning back to the screen. "Look!" Bulma placed her finger on a line of information. "There. She was entered into the system on August 28th."

He stared at the floor, jaw clenched. "That's before I left." He reeled.

Her face fell, watching him sympathetically.

"My father hired her on before I left." He looked up at her. "She had no intention of working for me."

Bulma nodded. "It would seem that way." She chewed over the information. "She responded to your call for a different reason than a job offer."

"Is she just trying to get back with me?" Vegeta looked bewildered.

Bulma rolled her eyes. "You may be handsome with an impossibly cute butt, but sometimes your ego clouds your reasoning. I think she was likely sent to dissuade you from setting up shop." Bulma's eyes widened. "Or to feel me out. Does your father know about me?"

"No," Vegeta stated with certainty. Then looked askant. "Well, it's possible." He didn't look like he liked the thought of admitting he was wrong. "We were on the cover of the West City Barker. It's not exactly a secret anymore that we are at least acquainted, beyond the complexities of the Freeman case."

Bulma's eyebrows shot up. "I was on the cover of West City Barker and you didn't tell me?"

Vegeta's face crumpled into anger at her abrupt and unnecessary change of subject. "That's not what's important!"

"Now I have to go out and get one!"

"No you don't, woman, you have to finish what we started!"

"You're being insensitive to my dreams!"

"There's one on the kitchen table if it means so much to you!" He hollered.

"You mean you bought one?" She watched him with wide surprised eyes. "Vegeta no'Ouji bought a West City Barker?" She stifled a giggle as he flushed deep red. "I'm going to go see!"

She hurried down the hall to the kitchen, where, strategically placed under a few well-regarded newspapers, was the cheesy and outrageous tabloid with, sure enough, her and Vegeta's smiling faces all over it.

She flipped rapidly to the story. "Awww," she cooed, grazing over the text quickly. With no warning, she ripped out a page and rifled through one of his cabinet drawers.

"What are you doing?" He asked incredulously, stomping in.

She ripped off a piece of tape with her teeth before placing the page on the fridge and smacking the piece of tape over it.

"There," she said, beaming with success.

It was a candid picture of them smiling at one another at the car show.

"Now you won't forget your someone's boyfriend," she growled before strutting back to his bedroom.

Vegeta felt like he was going to tear his hair out.

"You're a crazy person!" He yelled down the hall. As he reentered his room, she was stuffing her dirty clothes into her backpack and zipping it up. "What are you doing?"

"It's past midnight. I'm going to get headed home." She shrugged the backpack on. "It's too late for any more investigating."

He brushed the backpack straps off her shoulders immediately. "I disagree. ….Stay here tonight." He didn't meet her eyes.

She watched him. "But you have a big day tomorrow. I know you'd rather not be bothered—"

"Just, be quiet, and stay with me tonight." He looked out the edges of his eyes.

He turned away when her smile blossomed.

"Okay," she answered, feeling it out. "Are you sure I won't be intruding?"

"You will be if you keep asking that."

She dropped the backpack uncertainly to the floor.

As they laid down beside each other in bed without touching the other, she placed her hand affectionately on his cheek, smiling.

With a grumpy sigh, he drew her into his chest and held her there.

"I won't see you for awhile, huh," she said with some sadness.

"It's temporary."

"You're the owner and partner of a firm that is threatening to take down a notorious lawyer in a landmark case with the Department of Police," she expressed with sad irony. "I doubt I'll see you for awhile."

"There's the event Saturday."

"That's work."

"You'll see me, won't you?"

She sighed. "Sure." After a brief moment, she pulled back to look at him. He didn't like the look in her eyes.

"Since I won't see much of you in the near future, and you just left me to watch baseball by myself,  _and_  I hacked into your father's system—"

He grit his teeth. "State your price."

"—I think you owe it to me to give me something I want."

He looked down at her cautiously. "And what's that," he bit out, suspicious.

"Vegeta, do you ever say please?" Her smile was growing wider by the second.

He frowned. "What kind of question is that."

"I don't think you're a man who says please and thank you." She sat up on her elbow in bed. "I think you're a man who deliberately  _refrains_  from saying please and thank you."

"Your point?" He asked uncomfortably.

"My point is," she said, sitting up in bed and straddling him, making his eyebrows jut up, "that I think I'd like you to say please and thank you every once in awhile." Her hands slid down his broad, hard pecs and up the soft skin of his inner arm before holding his wrists above his head.

"I thought you told Chi Chi you were done 'humping' for the day," he asked with some disdain, but she felt his free fingertips making their way up her back to her bra hooks.

She slapped his arm away and shrugged. "What can I say? I like you." She smiled deviously. "Listen. You always get to lead. I want to lead."

"Okay," he immediately agreed, snaking his hand up her shirt again.

She laughed. "No. I mean, you can't touch me."

"That doesn't sound fun." He frowned.

"But I can touch you."

"Then that's not so bad."

"But you have to ask me nicely."

He growled.

"You have to say please."

"You're trying me."

"And when I'm all done with you…you have to say thank you."

They stared at one another for a brief moment. He was hard against her even through his jeans, and the friction was already causing her mouth to part in anticipation.

"Well, then," he smiled broadly, the wicked thing she loved so much. "Why not tie me up while you're at it? There's some silk straps in my drawer." He glanced over at his nightstand.

"I'm not using toys you used with other women!" She shrieked.

"I bought them for us!" He hollered.

"Oh. Well then." She leaned over and drew the drawer out, peering in. Her eyes got wide. "You're gonna have to walk me through this."

Knowing he got the best of her, knowing he successfully tricked her in order to lead her in some way, Vegeta sat up with her in his lap, kissed her recklessly, and smiled.


	18. Chapter 18

She fiddled with her phone, worrying her lip.

The brief text message in the palm of her hand was the most she'd heard from Vegeta all week.

_Tonight. 7 o'clock. Crown Plaza Ballroom._

Tonight was Vegeta's big event.

Bulma absently swiped through her phone contacts before smashing the call button on one in particular.

Chi Chi picked up on the first ring. "Yo."

"Cheech," Bulma began hesitantly. "I have a question."

"What's up?" Crunching followed. Chi Chi was eating. Welp, she had her appetite back.

"If I was—theoretically—going to a black tie event, dining among a bunch of lawyers, and representing the host as his date—would I be correct in feeling absolutely terrified?"

"Oh, are you talking about that svelte shindig Vegeta's throwing tonight?"

Bulma bit her nails. "How did you know?" Her stylist gently slapped Bulma's manicured hand away from her mouth.

"We all know. Vegeta's throwing his success in his old man's face. Real mature." Bulma could practically hear Chi Chi roll her eyes. "And, by association, my Goku's pretty face, too! Goku just keeps going on and on about how many caterers there will be, and why weren't we invited…"

"Poor Goku. I'll try to sneak him back some hors d'oeuvres." Bulma paused, hands toying with the dress hem at her knees. "I'm not sure I can do this, Cheech."

"Why not?" More crunching. "You've been to plenty of Capsule Corp events. You'll do just fine."

Bulma stared at herself in the mirror. "I don't know. They'll be able to tell I'm not one of them from a mile away." Bulma's voice lowered. "Like blood in the water."

"You talk about us like we're sharks."

Bulma's pointer finger lifted imperiously. "Are you suggesting that Vegeta and his professional retinue aren't man-eating predators?"

"Touché. Well, what are you wearing? Let's start with that."

Bulma shifted uncomfortably. "My mom called in the stylist we have on retainer."

Chi Chi perked up. "Oh? So you must be getting ready then?"

"Oh yes." Bulma closed her eyes under a rain of hairspray. "I'm pretty much done now."

"Are you beautiful yet?" Chi Chi couldn't help her excitement. "What's the dress look like?!"

Bulma stood, eyeing herself in the mirror. "I've sat here all afternoon getting ready, so I better be dazzling, damnet. Listen, I have to go. I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck."

"Alright, girlie. Knock 'em dead."

Bulma placed the phone on the vanity, stood up, and steeled herself.

Bulma finally, really looked at herself in the mirror.

"What do you think?" Her stylist's eyes flicked to her smugly, thinking they both already knew the answer.

Bulma stared.

Who was this woman staring back at her?

"I look red carpet ready, holy shit." She regarded the sultry sapphire eyes that stared back at her under big, black lashes. Bulma watched herself talk in the mirror: her sculpted cheeks, the round cupid's bow of her lips darkened with lipstick, the smooth, dewy skin. "Makeup is magic."

"What's your man going to think?"

What would Vegeta think of her? Would he even recognize her? Would he approve? "Hopefully I even get a chance to say hello. He's liable to be too busy." She sighed before smiling at the woman that had made the hoodoo happen. "Thank you."

Her stylist shrugged, beginning to pick up her things. "No big deal. I had a great medium to work with." She winked in Bulma's direction before placing her hair dryer in a travel box.

Bunny strut in and stopped in her tracks. Her hands slapped together, and she beamed. "Oh, honey, you look beautiful!"

Bulma cringed. "I don't look too 'it's-my-senior-prom,' do I?"

Bunny shook her head forcefully. "Oh, no. You're stunning."

"I'm so scared, Mom." She wrapped her arms around herself.

"Why?" Bunny's voice was sincere in its confusion. "You're going to be the most beautiful belle at the ball, and you've got a handsome man on your arm like a big, hunky corsage!" Her nose wrinkled up with glee. "Just have a couple of drinks and unwind!"

"I think the last thing I need to do is unwind and be myself." Bulma patted at the ringlets coiled at the nape of her neck, low on her head in some sophisticated hairstyle type thing. "I don't know that I should drink in this situation," she explained anxiously. "I need to be collected." She sighed, eyeing the flush swept up her cheeks with wonder, the tops of her breasts beneath her collar bone expanding with each breath. She looked like she'd strut straight out of a magazine. "This isn't as much a date, I think, as it is my putting on a pretty face for his new practice." She carefully sat down. Not being able to sprawl out with both legs wide would take some control. "These lawyer types and I just don't get along. I'm out of my element at an event like this." She thought back on the slew of lawyers Chi Chi had tried setting her up with the last few years and had to contain an unladylike snort. If that wasn't damning, what was?

Her mother sat beside her and squeezed her hand. "That's not true, dear. You've been to plenty of functions and have gone toe-to-toe with professionals and politicians alike. What about that time we had to pull you away from an argument with that young senator who'd suggested our caterers were unlawful immigrants?" She winked, rubbing shoulders with her daughter affectionately. "What's those lawyers have that you don't, hm?"

"They're all snide and privileged and judgmental, you know? As soon as they ask what I do for a living their eyes cross. I dunno, mom. It'd be easier if I could saunter in there in my work clothes and my tool belt. Then I'd dare them to say something." Her lips thinned, and she looked at her mom earnestly. "It's really not so much that I'm playing dress up and interacting with stodgy businessmen, as it is—" Bulma blew air from pursed lips—"as it is knowing I'm going to be representing Vegeta tonight, and he has such high expectations, and I don't want to screw it up." She sighed, resting her chin on her fist.

"I'm sure Vegeta wants you to enjoy yourself, honey, and you know what? I bet he needs you for support as much as you need him."

The women shared a smile on the divan in the lingering sunlight.

* * *

Goku frowned down at the takeout resentfully.

And to think, he could have been eating crab cakes and those rolled-up, cream cheese appetizer things to his heart's content.

Sadly, it was not to be. And it just wasn't going to be the same with Bulma stuffing some into her purse for him like she'd just assured him she'd do in a recent text, either.

Goku was coming up against a real problem lately that he was starting to believe he was the only one in the whole darned world who could see. Here he was, another night alone, doing the last thing he wanted to do:

staying after hours at the office.

His father had left him a few hours ago, snarling under his breath about having something better to do tonight, leaving Goku alone in the quiet of the big office, the last warm rays of the sun falling across his beleaguered face.

He wasn't usually a grudge holder, but he was finding himself feeling things he didn't appreciate feeling and doing all sorts of things he wouldn't normally. It was hard enough to go to work each morning, and to go to sleep at night knowing he was just going to have to come back in the morning. As each day passed, his grip on his sanity and patience came undone a little bit more. And as if his father could sense it, he was handed more and more work, like that was the answer to all of his problems.

But who cared? Who cared how he felt? Who was around to share these feelings with? Bardock didn't pay him any attention other than to pull a chain and make it rain faxes and emails over his head—did he mention how much he hated replying to emails?—and Chi Chi had been sucked into wedding and baby planning. He was starting to become concerned that he'd become invisible.

To make matters worse, baseball season had just wound down for the winter, so losing himself in a friendly competition was out of the question. And his only other friends had abandoned him over something he'd no control over. As they celebrated their success together tonight, Goku was bent over the only thing he had left in the world. Paperwork.

It was leaving Goku feeling more and more restless, and more and more buried alive. It was throwing him into doing some unanticipated soul searching, and he was finding that the more he scrutinized his reality, the more he found himself thinking dangerous thoughts.

He wanted to make Chi Chi proud, and he wanted to take care of her. But those two goals were on the complete opposite spectrum of what he wanted for himself.

Goku sighed again, flipping through paperwork with dull despair. He'd sighed many times since the clock had hit 4:30. Since the guys had left, the firm had suffered a decrease in staff and an increase in work that he was expected to fill. He felt like banging his head against a wall. Never had he wanted so violently to leave a job, and contrarily, never had he wanted to make Chi Chi so proud.

He had no options available.

Goku banged his head against his desk for real this time.

The front door chimed. Goku glanced up in surprise. He wasn't expecting anyone; as far as he knew, everyone who'd been forced to come in today had come and gone.

He heard voices from behind his desk cubicle. One was a woman's, another softer, a young man's.

"—and that's why, when he asks, you tell him—"

The pair rounded the corner and came face to face with Goku, who watched them curiously.

"Can I help you?" He asked, trying his best to keep the fatigue out of his voice, though every second of trying to remain professional drained him.

Both the woman and the boy stiffened, but the woman was first to recover. She smiled wide. "Let me guess. You're Bardock's son. Spitting image."

"One of them, yes." Goku stood. "Is there something you need? The office is closed until Monday morning."

"Um. You know, I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Fasha, and this is my nephew." She extended her hand out to him. "He's just tagging along with me. I'm a friend of your fathers, as well as Vejeta's—Senior, that is." Their hands closed around each other, bobbing up and down, and Goku couldn't help but think that he was getting a bizarre little undercurrent off of her.

"If you're looking for my father, he's already left for the night."

"No, no," the woman laughed a little too cheerfully. "Actually, I'm here on business. You see, your father and Vejeta Senior have hired me to do some work for them. I'm just here to find a few files that he left on his desk."

Her smile was wide, her eyes gleaming. Goku frowned. "I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of this arrangement. I'm afraid I can't just let you into his office in good conscience until I've received some sort of notice…"

"Oh! Oh, of course. I don't want to trouble you. You know what, I'll just come back later. I don't want to trouble you."

"Would you like me to call my father?" Goku tried to appear competent. "It would simply be a matter of getting hold of him and confirming—"

"No! No. Don't worry about it. I'll just come back at another time. It's really not a big deal. I'm sure both Vejita Senior and Bardock are enjoying their Saturday night already." The woman was already turning, leading her teenaged nephew out the door by the small of his back. "Thank you, Goku Son."

He didn't have time to answer before the door was shutting behind them, the woman's sharp bob caught in the breeze it made as she ushered her nephew to the elevator.

He watched them go and wasn't able to wipe the frown from his face. Something didn't feel right.

Perhaps it was just his distaste for the whole profession anymore. He curled his lip and sighed, resting his head in his palm, watching the horizon from his office window.

Barely a minute had passed when he broke. He was  _done_  for the weekend. He snatched up his coat and briefcase and hurriedly shut down his computer. There was a sour feeling in his mouth and he wanted nothing more than to clean up at the gym.

Goku made sure to lock the door behind him before taking the stairs.

* * *

The man at the door spent a bit longer than Bulma could comfortably endure making sure she was on the list, and Bulma was about to mutter a few choice words a mechanic picks up for errant bolts and engine blocks that fall on toes before the guy opened the door for her, jazz and the tinkling of glass spilling out.

She walked in slowly, gazing around.

The suite stretched far back into the ambient light, contemporary tables and couches fitted together into many little personal spaces. There was a bar at the back and a row of tables with food and wine that stretched the whole length of the room, caterers behind them with arms behind their backs. To her surprise, there was a DJ behind a small dance floor, people chatting away on the dance floor in suits and tasteful black gowns.

The first thing she truly noticed was how this was  _not_  a small affair like Vegeta had said it'd be. There were a lot of people here. People laughing, champagne flutes in the air, people taking selfies, people in small groups talking about brokers and 401Ks. It was like some high-profile New Years Eve party which she'd mistakenly been invited to. No wonder it had taken the guy at the door so long to find her name; it must have been in small print on the very back page, with an asterisk denoting, "This woman has  **no**  retirement plan. Approach with caution." She began to walk through them carefully, uncertainly.

Well, the bar was always a safe place to be. As she and Chi Chi always said, if you strayed off the path, sit down at the bar and slam a couple while you wait for help.

"Excuse me. Pardon me," she murmured, holding her blue suede clutch against her chest. Thankfully her stylist had outfitted her in some manageable heels, or else she'd be stumbling between people like a pool ball. As much as she'd rather stomp around in combat boots, she had her pride.

She was happy to see, in that vein, that other women were dressed as fancy as she was. Though she wore an ordinary enough satin dress, its hem appropriately above the knee and demurely royal blue, the sleeveless, plunging sweetheart neckline was more risqué than her usual fare, fitted to her body and ruched at her hips. Bulma couldn't remember the last time she'd been this sumptuous.

She  _needed_  to be dazzling tonight, but she did not want to be mistaken for a sex-crazed lawyer-groupie, either; and despite that her stylist looked like she had no idea what a "sex-crazed lawyer-groupie" looked like, she'd delivered. The little blue number was as sophisticated as it was feminine, the modest bottom balancing the flirty chest. She wasn't quite used to the strapless push up bra, though, constricting as it was around her ribs—she was fortunate that she could wear some awfully comfortable, raggedy bras at work—but  _damn_ , it made her boobs look  _great_. She had to restrain herself from shuffling to the bathroom to send Chi Chi a pic of her breasts with about a dozen thumbs up emoticons.

So far, she didn't feel as misplaced as she'd expected. Though nothing could beat a pair of greasy coveralls in making her feel like she could confidently clobber a lawyer with the heavy butt of her wrench, she didn't necessarily feel…uncomfortable…in the dress, and in the midst of all these hotshots. The goal was to be as elegant as possible tonight, since that's what Vegeta seemed most concerned about, and to be as cordial as humanely possible to a bunch of pig-headed pundits.

As she drew near the bar, scanning the crowd unsuccessfully for a certain flame-haired lawyer, she saw a familiar form on a bar stool checking his phone.

She hurried over, gripped his shoulder and grinned. "Hey!"

Raditz glanced at her and then did a hard double take, phone forgotten, eyes wide. "Holy balls, woman! I didn't recognize you at first!" He slid his phone into his suit jacket, eyeing her up and down. "You were almost Raditz Prey for a second."

"Raditz Prey?"

"Yeah. That's what I call a foxy looking woman I'm about to mack on."

"Oh. Nice."

Raditz continued to look at her, assessing. "I'm gonna be honest. If you weren't with Vegeta, I'd be alllllll over that right now."

Bulma's face fell. "Alright, you already wore out your welcome."

"Just saying. You clean up really well, holy shit. I wouldn't have even recognized you. Are you looking for Vegeta, I'm guessing?"

The bartender waded over to them. Bulma leaned over the bar, giving Raditz an eye full. "I'll take a cosmopolitan, please." She slid her card from her clutch and turned back to Raditz. "Yes. I wasn't expecting this many people here." She looked out over the crowd hesitantly.

"Didn't Vegeta tell you? He invited everyone. Except our jerk dads, of course, but that's the point. The police chief is here, several journalists, many of West City's most promising and elite." Raditz sipped his merlot with a bit of disquiet. "Most of the city council, who'd love to get a piece of his hot ass right now."

At a confused look from Bulma, he clarified. "I mean, they're toying with the idea of putting us on the fiscal register as future prosecutors for the city. They're not trying to literally get a piece of our ass. Which is fine by me," he muttered, glancing around with agitation. "There are  _no_  fine women on the city council."

Bulma frowned. "He told me this was going to be a small event. Like a meet and greet."

It was Raditz' turn to frown. "Hell no. This is an attention getting effort. Why else would Vegeta submit himself to socializing?"

"You have a point." She knocked back her martini. "I'm having a hard time reconciling Vegeta with selfies and a dance floor," she commented dryly.

"The creme de la creme, and all attention and adoration on us. Our fathers may be bulldog lawyers, but they are  _not_  well liked." He said it under his lashes, gazing into his wine as he sipped it.

She watched him with concern. "Then why are you over here sulking, Raditz? This should be a grand affair for you and your career. And you're a party animal."

"I already made my rounds. I took a smoke break, I'm going to put some alcohol in me, and then I'll get back to rubbing elbows."

She rubbed his back companionably. "Raditz. You don't seem like yourself lately. You usually preen under attention."

Raditz glanced up at her as if caught in the cross hairs.

Poor guy. She smiled encouragingly, an almost maternal gesture. "You look real handsome tonight, kiddo. Your hair looks good pulled back. Well, I've got to put my game face on and find his royal highness."

Raditz watched her carefully. "He was over there talking to a few judges. Be warned, Bulma."

"I got this." She winked at him. "I'll know I'm near by the scent of sulfur and all the fire and brimstone in the air."

She downed the rest of her cosmo and steeled herself.

The time had come.

An energetic song appropriately began its take-no-prisoners beat from the speakers as she peeled herself off the chair. She exhaled in a rush, rolling her shoulders. She was Bulma Briefs, engineer extraordinaire. She was like Rocky, sprinting up the stairs, Vegeta her "Adrien!" No, she was Eleanor Roosevelt sprinting up the stairs yelling "Adrien!" She was Elizabeth the First, she was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was Margaret Thatcher! Okay, maybe not Margaret Thatcher. She was Ada Lovelace! She was Marie Curie! She was Hedy Lamarr! She was a strong woman with many strong women behind her, rooting for her. "I've got this," she whispered, brows creasing with determination, fists curling at her side.

She turned and made her way slowly around the edge of the crowd, trying to scan the room without looking obviously lost. She may be a pariah here, but she was a pariah invited by a prince. She exhaled. She was just a hot woman in a dress looking for her hot date, she told herself, a date that needed her support now more than ever.

Now if she could just find him.

* * *

Vegeta nodded, pretending to listen to the judges complain about budget cuts and the city council with a glass of champagne in his hand.

"If they cut the line down Parkway and Rinauld Avenue, then who represents the district, huh?"

Vegeta already knew what was coming, and sipped his champagne.

"Councilman Leary, that's who."

The other men nodded their head in agreement.

"I'm sick and tired of this gerrymandering juggle that Leary and his retinue are always playing," Howser complained. "All we get is gridlock for miles, and for what? A few hundred thousand siphoned off by the Jones Corporation."

The other men murmured agreeably.

Judge Howser peered over Vegeta's shoulder. "Why, that young lady looks like she's looking for someone. Has anyone here lost their daughter?"

Vegeta's eyes slid to the side, and a shock of blue pulled his gaze over his shoulder.

His mouth immediately dried.

There she was, in a fitted blue dress, scanning the crowd—for him?—as she grew near. Her teal curls were pulled back in a french roll, leaving her slender neck and round shoulders bare. The rare sight of her creamy skin made his stomach clench. A clutch dangled from her grip as each step brought her closer to them, and as if she felt someone looking at her, her head turned.

Their eyes met.

He didn't breathe as he watched her take the last few steps toward him, a smile blooming on her face.

She put her hand on his arm, and it was electric, her small, pale hand against his black suit. His eyes fixated on her, and for just a fleeting moment, there was no one in the world but her.

She smiled at him, a shy, contented thing that pushed the apples of her cheeks into her sparkling eyes and caused his heart to flatline, then turned her body to smile at the men forgotten around them. "Excuse me for interrupting, gentlemen," she said politely. "I was just looking for my date."

"Oh, it's no problem at all. Pleasure to meet you." The first chair judge held out his hand and she extended her own, their hands shaking. "Aldebert Snyder, first district judge."

"Nice to meet you Judge Snyder. Bulma Briefs."

"Bulma Briefs, of Capsule Corporation?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, winking. "The one and only."

"Well, I'll be. Gentlemen, shake the woman's hand. You're in the presence of royalty here."

Vegeta watched her shake hands and charm the judges with wide eyes. This was a far cry from the strained seams and uncomfortable shifting in the just-left-the-office-outfit she'd been wearing when they first met. He could see her impact in the eyes of the men around him, who were waiting eagerly to be noticed by her.

Vegeta cleared his throat, stepping in to introduce her to each West City councilman as they waded over.

"My, my." The men turned to Vegeta, beaming. "Your date comes with quite the credentials."

"Leave it to Vegeta Junior to snag the most alluring date for the event."

The men laughed, and Bulma's face fell before she covered it with a smile.

"She's something else," he asserted.

"We're all quite jealous!" They laughed good-naturedly, and though Bulma's stomach tightened at the icky thought, she tried reminding herself that they were simply harmless, lecherous old men. She'd always suspected it of the incumbent councilmen. It'd be a real pleasure to see their faces fall when they figured out who was sponsoring their opponent this election cycle.

"Ah, Ms. Briefs, are you an investor in Ouji and Associates?"

Vegeta's eyes flicked to Bulma.

Without missing a beat, she smiled prettily. "I'd call it ground support. I help keep Vegeta cool and collected when things get rough." With clever grace, she added, "Though my father might not approve of my methods."

The men laughed.

He couldn't take his eyes off of her if he wanted to. He'd never imagined she could look so polished or banter with the stuffy old council members with such ease. And she was doing it for him. He wanted to run his hands down her bare arms, place his mouth against her naked collar bone, bend down on one knee and sneak the panties from under the hem of her dress.

Vegeta couldn't help interrupting the conversation. "Excuse us, gentlemen. I'd like to introduce Ms. Briefs to somebody."

"Oh, yes, of course."

"We'll speak to you later, no'Ouji."

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Briefs."

Bulma waved over her shoulder as Vegeta put his arm gently through her own and led her slowly away.

She made a face. "Blech. I think I'm gonna hurl."

His hold tightened on her. "You're stunning tonight."

She looked up at him with surprise.

He watched her sidelong. "Were you not expecting me to say that?"

She looked uneasy. "Well, honestly…I guess…no. I'm sorry. I wasn't sure  _what_  to expect from you."

He gave her a hard look at her lull in confidence in him. "No. You're good. You look good. I...I couldn't have asked for a more perfect date by my side." He didn't mean to say it, and so it came out rough, and he worried his enthusiasm made it sound forced.

She blushed, shying away from him. "Well, you bid me to be here, and here I am…"

He snatched two glasses of wine from a server and handed her one.

There was something absolutely enticing about seeing her in a dress among his peers, and he felt the overwhelming urge to pull her aside in a dark hallway, bend down on one knee to throw her legs over his shoulders, and ravish the juncture between her legs until she cried out for all to hear. She was so beautiful, so humble—well, only when it counted—and spirited that he felt like touching her was tainting her, but all he wanted to  _do_  was touch her. And yet he was feeling as shy as a little boy around her, could not even make himself look directly at her, as if he might be scorched if he were to do anything but touch her with complete propriety. He'd never felt this towards a woman, not even when he was a teenager and every girl invoked a lurid fantasy.

"We'll make our rounds and say our hellos. I'll introduce you to some of the investors and supporters of the practice, and if you can get through it all with a big smile and that finesse of yours, I'll reward you at the end of the night."

Her lips pursed. "Ooh, a reward, eh?"

Rather than his usual small, wicked smile that spelled heated things to come, he masked his emotions cleanly. "Keep it up and you'll see."

"Hmm." She surveyed him curiously as she sipped her wine, but he gave up nothing.

She felt his hand at her lower back, where her dress split and revealed a triangle of skin. His nails brushed against her there.

Vegeta did not like it lingering uncleanly between them, so he spoke quickly. "I apologize if the judges offended you. They meant nothing of it. They are crass and inappropriate even in the best of situations, but to court them is to court the city."

"It's fine. They're a boys club. And I played on that. There were other dates before me. You're allowed that, no'Ouji."

He drew her close, and though something in him was warning him to back away, to remain professional and stolid among so many of his peers, he couldn't help it. Setting his jaw, he refrained from pulling her flat up against him. "Yes, they are a boys club, but they were genuinely impressed by you tonight. And while I have brought dates to other events…" He cleared his throat, looking away. "I have never brought anyone special before."

She smiled happily, hiding it in his shoulder, feeling the heat rise in her face as she watched the crowd. "Well, I'm very proud of you. You got a law practice off the ground and up and running in record time and it looks like you have the support of a city. You work hard and it shows." Her cheeks pinkened even more. "You have a lot to be proud of."

_Not the least of which is you,_  he thought. "Keep showering me with compliments. A man like me could get used to it." He smirked, plucking another glass of wine from a table and handing it to her. "Let's rock and roll, shall we?"

* * *

Chi Chi knew an excuse when she heard one.

"So you're not coming home for dinner?" She tried to keep the tart tone out of her voice. It wasn't Goku's fault that he wanted to spend the evening at the gym. She growled. No, not his fault AT ALL.

She was breathing through her teeth. "Well, fine! That's fine."

Goku had an image of a streetlight displaying both a red and a green light. "Cheech, I'll be home soon. Nine at the latest."

"It's fine. Just fine. Talk to you soon!" She squeaked, slamming her thumb on the off button and wishing she had a hammer to make better work of it. "Oh my god," she snarled into the Rice Krispies. "Sometimes I want to strangle him."

"Trouble in paradise?"

Chi Chi startled, the grocery basket forgotten on her arm. "Juu?" She stared in surprise at the woman plucking a box of fiber cereal from the aisle a few feet away. "What the heck are you doing on this side of town?"

The two women leaned in for a reserved hug.

"I had a meeting with a client at Harper's down the street," Eighteen replied cooly, placing the cereal box into her own basket. "I'm picking up a few things on my way home."

"Oh. Ha," Chi Chi couldn't help but stammer uneasily. "How coincidental."

Eighteen watched her from cornflower blue eyes perceptively. She tucked her hair behind her ear and faced her. "There's something I'd like to say to you."

Chi Chi stiffened, coloring. Oh no. This was about them blowing her off at the club for sure—

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?" Chi Chi's eyebrows shot up.

"For being so pretentious at the club. I didn't intend on rubbing my engagement in you and Bulma's face." She paused. "Actually, I did."

Chi Chi, bewildered, watched the woman's eyes drift to the ground.

"Krillin and I haven't seen a lot of each other lately, and with my workload, I don't get to socialize often. Krillin and I had gotten into an argument that night about seeing more of each other more often…that I instigated…and I guess I was just looking to feel better about myself. I shouldn't have taken it out on you two."

If Chi Chi didn't know any better, she'd have been incensed at Eighteen's detached tone. But Chi Chi had spent her young adulthood writing papers and bar crawling and gossiping about professors with this woman. She was stunned to even receive an apology. And touched.

"Juu," Chi Chi drawled wistfully. "Come here." Chi Chi pressed the woman against her for a hug, and though the other woman squeezed her back, it didn't take long for her to disengage stiffly.

"Oh my god," Eighteen cried. "Chi Chi are you pregnant?"

Both the women glanced down to her belly.

"Yep," Chi Chi replied through a warbly smile. "And engaged." She held the back of her hand up, light glinting on the solitaire.

Eighteen's icy blue eyes were wide. "Can I touch it?" She glanced to Chi Chi's swollen belly. Chi Chi nodded.

Eighteen placed a slender white hand against Chi Chi's belly, tenderly, as if she might pop it. To Chi Chi's utter surprise, Eighteen looked up at her with misty eyes. "Congratulations," she whispered.

Chi Chi smiled.

Eighteen straightened, dashing at her eyes. "Okay. Let's pay for this stuff and go have coffee. Of course, you will be buying decaf. You know, I go to this little cafe on the corner of 83rd and Broadway and they make the best red bean smoothies. Very nutritious for expecting mothers."

"You sure do know a lot about pregnancy," Chi Chi muttered wryly.

"Yes, well." Eighteen had the decency to blush, the pink pretty on her pale cheeks. "Krillin and I have been talking about getting pregnant."

Chi Chi gaped.

"That's why I'm going to take you to Safflowers." Eighteen tucked a stray, pin-straight lock of white-blonde hair behind a small ear, frowning with determination. "It's this adorable little cafe where everything is organic and vegan. No ingredients that can harm the baby, just one hundred percent healthy, sustainable, raw food. They serve this beet juice that's—"

Chi Chi blew air out pursed lips. "Eighteen, shut up and take me out for coffee."

The taller woman stared at Chi Chi before breaking into a sly smile, crooking her finger and walking off. "Let's go, bitch."

Chi Chi smiled, waddling behind her.

* * *

Vegeta watched under his eyelashes as Bulma laughed with a few female members of the city council. He sipped his champagne.

As a businessman, as a professional, as a cool-headed elite moving up through the ranks of West City, he approved of his date interacting with all of the important players in West City, charming them, intriguing them with her clever, colloquial banter, and casting the light of approval on to him and his work. She was so easy going, so effortlessly sincere, that anyone who'd met her tonight couldn't help but befriend her. She had done what he'd hoped and more.

As a man, though…as a man, he was growing tired of sharing.

He steeled himself, placing the champagne flute onto a server's tray and striding toward her.

Bulma looked up in surprise as his shadow fell over them. Having her undivided attention caused his heart to jump.

"Pardon me, Councilman Anoggy, Councilwoman Cilla. Would you mind if I stole Ms. Briefs from you?"

"Oh, no." They waved their hands at him, giving her back. "Your date is lovely, no'Ouji!"

Vegeta thanked them, moving himself in front of Bulma to demand her full attention.

Vegeta outstretched his hand. She watched as he stared downward under long black lashes. "Would you share a dance with me?" He did not look directly at her, and she was stunned by his shyness.

She placed her own palm in his own, unable to emit an answer, hoping it was answer enough, and he led her to the small dance floor. It was crowded enough that they didn't feel like the center of attention, but as Bulma placed her hand delicately on Vegeta's shoulder, they both looked down demurely.

She felt Vegeta's hand come to rest on the small of her waist, light but burning through the satin. The other clutched her hand tighter, pinning it at their side.

She breathed him in, the scent of clean laundry, of a man's musk, and of something sharp and spicy that was his and his alone.

Their feet didn't move much from the floor as they rocked slightly to the music without speaking, at first awkwardly, and then absorbed, others around them forgotten.

Finally, Bulma rested her head on Vegeta's shoulder, and even when the music picked back up, they continued their sway in the other's arms.

* * *

They were shaking hands with the last in attendance at the door, most of them too inebriated to realize the party had ended. Bulma had shooed them out as best as she could, and now they stumbled out the threshold, laughing at their two left feet. The music had finally shut off, and the caterers were packing up. She stood between Vegeta and Raditz in a line at the door, saying adieu, playing bouncer whenever necessary.

"My face hurts from smiling," she muttered.

"You and me both, kitten," replied Raditz, patting someone on the back and urging them to call him Monday.

"You're really something else when you're at work." Her eyes drifted up toward the tall man at her side, who peered down at her with a shade of amusement.

"You have no faith in me."

"I didn't say that." She shook hands with the remaining stragglers and stepped aside. "Okay, yes I did. What did you expect me to think of you, though?"

Raditz glared at her, and she smiled churlishly back.

"Well, kids, I'm off to bed, now. We mere mortals have to get our sleepy sleep."

She and Vegeta regarded him with some surprise. Even Nappa turned in question.

"You're going home?"

"I'm tuckered out." He was pulling his wool coat from the long coat rack.

He blinked when he felt a hand against his cheek. Bulma was standing on her tip toes, frowning at him, her thinned lips inches from his. "You don't  _feel_  hot. Do you feel sick?"

Raditz glanced at Vegeta, who was watching her tight-lipped. Bulma didn't seem aware of it, but Vegeta  _really_  didn't like when she was close to other men. He knew his friend was trying his best to let a wild, impulse-chasing woman like Bulma have her space, but Raditz imagined the feeling of protectiveness and attraction was all rather new to him, especially with a lady as pal-sy wal-sy as Bulma. It was especially ironic given that Vegeta himself didn't like being near anyone.

Raditz grabbed Bulma's hand and put it firmly at her side. "I'm fine. I'm just tired. I ate a lot of cheese and gourmet crackers tonight," he pat his belly, "and it's been a lonnnng week, what can I say."

"We're going home?"

They turned to Nappa. Bulma felt a sad pang. He was like a melancholy puppy dog, waiting for his owner to come back home.

"I am. You can go out. Have fun without me." He shoved his sleeves into his coat and buttoned it at the waist. "Well, you all have fun now. Congrats on our first successful week at the firm." Raditz strode out of the door.

"I'll be at Bazookas if anyone needs me." Nappa moped after him.

"Well, I suppose I should be getting home, too," Bulma murmured. "I am rather impressed with you three. It was a lovely event."

Vegeta's hand stopped her as she took a step forward.

He shook his head. "You're not going home."

"Hm?"

"We're going up to the top." Vegeta pointed upward.

Bulma was baffled. "To the top?"

"To Suite 907."

"What's up there?"

Vegeta held open the door, waiting for her to walk through it.

"Our room."


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy 'lemon,' folks. Welcome to the jungle.

Bulma's wayward curls were tossed around lightly by the cool breeze which ribboned across a balcony that overlooked West City.

She turned her eyes on him, and the lights of her very favorite city gleamed in them. "It's beautiful!"

Vegeta and Bulma watched the horizon together, listening to traffic, the cars inching below their feet, and surveyed the cityscape, buildings reaching for the sky alight around them.

Bulma shivered but continued to peer over the edge. "It's getting cooler. Summer's ending." She sighed. "Soon it will be snowing." She startled as she felt something brush her back. Vegeta had placed his suit jacket over her shoulders and was peering out over the world as if nothing had happened.

She grabbed the lapels and drew them close.

"So your first week of work went off without a hitch?" She turned toward him, leaning her back against the rail, palms on the cool metal.

"I think I've slept only a few hours all week." He regarded her then with tired eyes. "But the staff has gotten into the swing of things, and we already have a few cases."

Her eyebrow rose. "People waiting in the wings for you?" With Vegeta's work pace? Color her unsurprised.

"It would seem like it." He gazed at the landscape measuredly. "Two of them were clients of my father's who jumped ship."

"That must feel good."

"It won't feel good until he's ruined."

She watched him, the breeze ruffling his hair as he scrutinized the horizon for answers. She understood that Vejeta Senior deserved no good will, but her eyebrows furrowed, concern for what was festering inside Vegeta, fueling his already relentless work pace.

"Let's go inside," she suggested, walking through the threshold of the opened sliding glass door.

She stepped through the room, eyeing it with wonder all over again. It was a very beautiful penthouse, spacious, gleaming with wood floors and boasting an immense bed on a deep oak frame. Her heels clacked as she closed in on the bathroom, spying both a hot tub and a shower, the familiar marks of excess in suites like these.

"It's a shame this is temporary; I could live like this on the daily. You really outdid yourself," she said, turning back to him with a grin.

And startled when he was right behind her.

His lips found hers without preamble, sweet with champagne, but light and chaste—a punches-pulled type of kiss that Vegeta didn't give out often. Quick, and innocent, but heavy with depth unvoiced.

"Thank you for coming," he murmured, his shadowed eyes finding hers. He hadn't yet closed the balcony door, and outside idled the sounds of the night, the breeze soughing through the doorway.

"I understood why you asked me to come," she admitted, meeting his eyes. "I was happy to help."

With arms crossed, she shyly toed the carpet. Vegeta must have felt it, too, the way the playing field had shifted, and so he stood with his hands in his pants pockets, his jaw taut, and she watched him as he struggled to say something.

"I didn't ask you to come for the benefit of others," he finally admitted, scowling with the need to confess and the frustration of not wanting to appear foolish by admitting...you know,  _feelings_. "I wanted you there because I'm selfish. Not for them," he asserted roughly. "For me."

Her finger curled and brushed against his smooth cheek, and he startled. He had such a beautiful face, and despite all his posturing when they first met she didn't think he was really aware of it. Though its bone structure was wholly masculine, jutting cheekbones above a strong jaw, five-o-clock shadow just easing in, his long, full lashes and honeyed skin were at odds with his cold sensibility. The contradictions of a man written plainly on his face.

Her arms snaked up around his neck, and she gently pressed herself into him, resting her cheek on his chest and stilling. She just breathed him in. His scent comforted her, underlying a strength and a masculinity that were his and his alone. She let out a breath, rubbing her cheek lightly against his shirt, silken against her face. After a moment, Vegeta's own hands lifted from his pockets and found purchase around her waist, drawing her in closer, resting his chin on the top of her head.

Had she ever been this fully content without him? This full of, of…of deep tenderness for someone? Though she thought she'd been happy enough as a single lady, she'd never felt this sense of completion before, the way a circle must feel when it completes its cycle and begins again on the well loved, familiar tracks of its body. Though she'd had an intimate relationship before, and though she'd cared for him as much as any green, wide-eyed girl does for her first boyfriend, she'd never felt this fulfillment before, this sense of exchange met. In Vegeta's arms, she felt safe and accepted. Was this  _love_? Was it this profound, quiet satisfaction, this visceral understanding?

Softly, his hands moved from her waist, upwards, until they were rounding her shoulders and pushing off his jacket with it. The suit jacket fell to the carpet softly, and he gripped her shoulders finally, round and warm and smooth in his rough palms.

Her head turned up slightly, just enough for her to inhale him there at the sharp underside of his jaw. Her mouth parted to breathe him deep into her belly, to taste the salt and truth of him.

He allowed her tongue to graze his skin, trail softly up his jawline. Without thinking, she bit the tender skin there softly, and he tightened his hold on her.

Vegeta just held held her close, rubbing her neck absently and dragging his face against her hair before his lips settled against her temple. His chest rose and fell against her face, passing the time tranquilly, until his fingers punctured the lull, reaching out to her, turning her head to the side with his thumb and forefinger under her chin to place a kiss on the apple of her cheek. And then one at the curl of her ear, open mouthed. His hot breath hit her ear and her skin prickled involuntarily.

His hands dipped into the hair at her neck, expertly unpinning the coif at her nape and tossing the bobby pins devil-knew-where, sinking his hand into the mass of loose curls with a sigh.

She ran her hands up his arms, thick and corded under crisp cotton. Bulma smiled up at him, eyes twinkling. "So I guess your plan is to make out in a hotel room like a couple of kids on prom night, huh?" Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt, quickly and adeptly drawing them through the buttonholes, beginning at the very top of his neck and assuredly plummeting down.

"Maybe I'll even get to second base tonight." His voice was low, teasing, and he sent her a dark look from under his eyelashes that sent her belly flopping. A slow laugh tumbled out of her nervously.

With a mind of its own, her other hand skimmed up his smooth chest and toyed with the hair at the back of his neck as she worked the last of the buttons through their holes.

There was something she couldn't quite put her finger on about Vegeta tonight. Was it rare tenderness, an acceptance, even, of his feelings for her? His hands reached up to grip her face, his thumbs rubbing at her temples with nervous energy, until they slipped into her hair, his nails dragging lazily across her scalp. She inhaled sharply through her nose. Her fingers had finished freeing the last button and she tugged his shirt tail out from his pants, because all she knew for certain in that moment was that she needed to be skin to skin with this man, to feel his bare chest press against her own, hot and smooth and wide.

He combed his fingers through the curls tumbling at her shoulders before capturing them whole and tugging her head back to, inescapably, run his teeth over her neck.

But still her hands were tugging at his shirt hem rebelliously, and it didn't take but a second for her to palm his compact stomach over his undershirt, skimming her hands up the ridges of his abs and out toward his shoulders, where they knocked his shirt off his wide shoulders and drag it the rest of the way off him, nails scraping his skin.

But Vegeta took a step back. Watching her, he grabbed at his t-shirt collar at the back of his neck, pulling the undershirt up his back and over his head. Bulma watched with a skipping pulse. He was all silky skin and rippling muscles as he threw the undershirt to the floor, the arch of his hair righting itself as he turned to meet her eyes again, tauntingly.

She was used to the explosive lust they shared between them, of being pinned to her desk after hours or thrown onto her back against a car, the crotch of her underwear ripped to the side as his fingers worked between her legs. She couldn't really explain what was between them, only that it was, and that it never stopped throbbing.

What neither of them had been expecting was this something more, this more that made the thing between them tonight heavier and more electric.

"Stop it," he commanded.

Her brow arched. "Stop what exactly?"

"Thinking. Not tonight," he complained, and grabbed her wrist to yank her close. She caught herself against silky skin, sliding her palms on hard chest. With a mind of their own, her fingertips trailed down his tight stomach, palms flared out to run along hard hips, thickly muscled.

"I should call for dinner," she interrupted with regret, the words forming against his mouth as he dipped his head to kiss her.

She wasn't stalling, she told herself a little too enthusiastically, though Vegeta narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

"Call them," he replied softly, retracting his hands from her.

Bulma made her way self-consciously to the desk in the corner of the room, a small lamp glowing beside the phone. She raised her foot behind her and worked her heel off with her fingertips as she picked the phone up from its cradle, searching for the number to the kitchen. A staff member answered genially as she toed the other one off. Steak or grilled salmon, basmati rice or buttered noodles, and as she confirmed all of it, she felt a presence descend over her. The back of her dress was suddenly tighter as she felt Vegeta's fingers pluck the head of the zipper and begin to pull down slowly. She was agreeing to a bottle of wine by the time the zipper hit the small of her back, and she managed to choke out "cheesecake" and hurry the phone back into its cradle as Vegeta tilted her head from behind with his long fingers, placing his lips against her neck, thoughtfully, one after the other.

"I almost hate to take it off," he admitted in her ear, easing his fingertips between the dress bust and her skin, working it off her breasts with absorption.

It slid with some protest over her chest, and Vegeta must have been watching, anticipating it, because she heard his sharp inhalation as her breasts bounced free of the blue satin. She was a woman who slung wrenches all day, and it wasn't the kind of lifestyle that encouraged beautiful undergarments or manicures. _Poor guy never_ _gets any lingerie-action._ Except tonight. The dress slid down her waist to rest at her hips, revealing the delicate lace push-up bra beneath. The cups were shallow enough that the scalloped edge stopped right under the tops of her pink nipples, and Vegeta carefully, oh so carefully, slid his hands over them, biting his teeth at the contrary feel against his palms of lace leaving soft, warm skin.

There was a knock at the door, and a snarl was ripped from Vegeta's throat. He quickly fixed her dress, zipping her adeptly in a matter of seconds before heading toward the door and leaving her dazed.

The door opened to a cart loaded full of food, and she took a few shaky steps forward as the server unloaded their dishes onto a table. When the door shut behind the man, Bulma's stomach complained. Loudly.

"Would you like to eat now?" Vegeta growled, though he didn't sound like he'd take very kindly to one answer specifically.

She sniggered. "I told you, I haven't eaten all evening. Don't care to wait?"

"Not particularly, no." His eyes dipped down her form, raking her legs and the juncture between them on their way back up, and she blushed.

He settled himself on the bed with a sigh then, sitting with his feet flat on the floor, glancing at the food before making up his mind and gesturing to her. "Come here," he ordered.

She padded slowly to him. Elbows on his knees, bare stomach and the ridges of his sides cast in shadows, he watched her with his chin resting on his knuckles.

He reached out for her as she neared, gripping her hips solidly before trailing his hands upward, dipping in at the small of her waist and widening back out at her bust as though tracing her silhouette. This time, he didn't take his time with the zipper. He watched her, daring her to object, and there was nothing smooth about his gaze, barbed and smoky and barely restrained.

But once the zipper hit its end, Bulma took a risk and stepped back, and then another step, just out of reach, so that his hands fell from her sides to dangle between his legs. Her mouth slanted wryly at Vegeta as he frowned in disapproval.

_Okay, here goes my strip tease._ She tucked her thumbs into the sides of the garment and pushed it slowly off her body. It took just a bit of wiggling to get it off her hips, but it was worth it, feeling the weight of Vegeta's gaze on her, riveted as if he would miss it all if he even blinked. Once the dress began sliding off her hips, she hesitantly bent to push it past her knees, where it pooled at her feet. Vegeta watched the swell of her breasts as she bent forward, and then, as she straightened, they fastened on the scrap of lace that her stylist assured her were panties. She didn't miss the shaky, forceful breath he emitted as he reached out for her, and she let him grab her hips and draw her close.

He put his parted lips to her soft belly, one small kiss warm in the cool night. And another, at her ribs, and another at the center of her where her breasts met. That's when she felt his fingernails drag across her hips and hook under the lacy panty, gripping it in both fists. He looked up at her, his eyes molten mahogany, his hair almost chestnut in the soft light. He buried his nose into her belly without breaking eye contact, and she didn't have much room to think as he slowly, gracefully, slid from the bed onto his knees, dragging his mouth down her stomach along with him.

The shock of his hot mouth as his tongue leapt out, dragging across the string of her panties, tracing the slight marks it had left in her skin. And then he grabbed it delicately with his teeth, pulled back, and let go. The elastic snapped back against her skin, a soft bite, and she let out a gush of air between her lips.

His hands retreated from her hips and found purchase on her thighs, above the knees, shapely and solid from the constant lifting required of her profession. His thumbs slicked their way up and found the plush swell of her inner thighs. And then taste-tested her there, his hot tongue roaming upwards experimentally.

She sucked in breath, her belly clenching as she watched him. He was all broad shoulders, divots where the round cuff of his shoulder met his neck. His back was wide and rippling with muscle under his skin like a wild cat, the muscles that stretched down the length of his back to his rear flexing and uncoiling each time his lips found their home on her thighs. She combed her fingers through his hair, and a sigh escaped from her throat.

They had done this many, many times, and yet Bulma felt like it was their first time. Not the awkward performance that sex was the very first time, but the first bolt of honest-to-goodness desire that a person comfortably feels with another. Their intimacy was usually fast-paced and uncontrolled, she was embarrassed to admit, although she might argue that Vegeta had, at least, a tenuous hold on his shred of humanity in the bedroom, clinging desperately onto his control if only to use it to tease and taunt her. But there were no rules here in this moment; everything was happening as slow, unconfined, and as compelling as if they were under water.

Vegeta's hands slid around to her backside, a caress, before his hands filled up with her ass, kissing her open-mouthed one last time at the innermost part of her thigh—causing her to tighten with anticipation—and then slowly, deliberately, traced his tongue up her lips through the scrap of lace that separated the two of them.

She choked, her body curling in to him for a moment as she stood on weakening knees. Vegeta stood to lay her on the bed and she barely noticed, instead reaching for him, coveting him, wanting to feel that solid, flushed, heavy strength pressing into her.

The room, the world, ran down and away like rain on a windowpane. No thought given to who they were today, to tomorrow, to the hum of people going about their business nine stories below them. She couldn't even tell if they were necessarily two distinct people—only two mouths, four hands, the heartbeat racing inside and against their chest.

She buried her fingers in his thick hair as his mouth found her slender neck again, but this time, it wasn't so constrained. His mouth was scorching against her skin, open wide now and tasting her, and she arched involuntarily into it, her body coiling like a spring with each kiss, until he'd worked himself down to her chest, to the creamy expanse under her collar.

She could see him watch her chest heave, her breasts tight against the black lace, and he closed the distance leisurely, until his teeth closed around the tip of her peaked nipple through the lace and she sucked in air. He shifted his body without releasing the flesh he'd captured in his mouth, gently nudged her legs apart with his hand. A sound escaped her, and as if he were waiting for just the right moment to act, his fingers glided under the slip of her underwear, sliding down the front scrap with the backs of his knuckles until they met her soft, damp lips.

"Vegeta," she cried brokenly, and he stiffened, trying to keep it all together.

He straightened above her then, watching her writhe on the bed below him. She was creamy and pale in the subdued light, black lace both exposing and withholding from him her most private parts, hair splayed out behind her as she watched him with parted, kiss-swollen lips and wild eyes. Her thighs, milky and pliant, scissored together with need.

He had never felt so grateful to be so out of control.

"Get back over here, jerk," she croaked, taut like a plucked string yearning for more of the music his fingers played of her body. She propped herself up on her palms, watching him with smoky, heavy-lidded eyes, her cheekbones harsh in the half light.

He smoothly slid the belt from his belt loops, and something about the way he adeptly used his fingers to do it caused her knees to squeeze together. He yanked the button free, and they came unfastened, sagging to the sides as he deftly, but slowly, unzipped his trousers. They slid down softly, the pants loosely gathering on his hips, and then he put his thumbs in the waistband of his boxer briefs and pushed.

Bulma lost her breath as he straightened, delicately licking her lips as his member, hard and thick, sprang free.

He crawled to her, tugging her panties down in one swift movement with his fist to discard them halfway down her thighs. Smoothly, he slid his shoulder under the backside of her knees and pushed, angling her hips and what lay between her legs up towards the heavens. He only wanted to taste it for a minute, only for a minute, only just for a minute as he put his lips around her and sucked lightly, earning a strangled gasp from him or her he couldn't tell. He reached with one hand and grasped the panties that held her legs together, sliding them the rest of the way down her calves to fall to the floor silently. Parting her knees wide, then, just to see her thighs open for him, soft and supple and quivering under his mouth. Her hips writhed on the sheets, and he thrust his arms under her thighs, pressing his fingertips mercilessly into them from above, his biceps flexing under her. He licked languidly up the cleft of her, drawing out a gasp, but she thrust up into his mouth anyway. He buried his face into her then, violently inhaling the scent of her, rubbing his nose against the soft, damp folds and dragging his teeth tenderly over the flesh there.

In the blink of an eye he was leaning his weight onto his palm above her, dragging his knuckles up the slick core of her as he did it with a hiss as his reward. Vegeta tucked his hands under her head, taming the wild tendrils clinging to her damp skin with his palms, and kissed her, finally, truly kissed her, opening her mouth and seeking to know her taste, her tongue and teeth, her secrets.

As he sucked on her lower lip until it was fat with need, her errant hands, which had settled so far for grasping the sheets around her, finally braced his head, pressing his mouth harder into hers. He slid his hands underneath her shoulders to unhook her bra, and he tugged it out from underneath her, chucking it with only one desire.

His body cut smoothly between her legs, parting her, and their mouth found the other's once again, hands tangled in the other's hair, until Bulma let out a soft cry as she felt the hot, velvety tip of his member drag against her.

He didn't force himself in just yet: just nudging her softly at her entrance, encouraging her to open. Her mouth roamed over his with abandon, and just as her fingertips slid down his broad, flat neck to trail across his back, her opening stretched to accommodate him, and he sunk slowly, deeply, into her.

They caught their breaths as he sank in fully, paralyzed by the pressure and the heat of the other. She panted shallowly into his mouth for a timeless moment, content to just be connected, at the hips, at their lips, as their chests heaved against the others.

Finally, Vegeta shifted his hips back, earning a hiss from them both, so he plunged back in to compensate. Bulma impatiently clapped her hands over Vegeta's cheeks and guided him back inside her with her hips, and he was quick to please. He fell onto his elbows, hitching her hips off the bed, and then devoured her mouth.

He began pumping his hips in earnest, then, experimenting to find exactly at what angle she wanted it until he could oblige her, rolling his hips into hers until she was crying out through her teeth. Her knees braced his sides, the insides of her legs silky against his hips. Her hands fell heavily to the sides of her head to tangle in her own hair. She was so hot, goddamnet, so sopping fucking wet, and he buried his head in the crook of her neck as he thrust in to her to pull almost all the way out, and again, until she was snarling, grabbing his hips and yanking him into her.

He clutched her tight and rolled them onto his back, but she didn't even blink. The second they'd stopped turning she was rolling her hips against his, grinding into him, and he was the one to cry out this time. She caught herself on her palms as she fell forward, her fingers gripping his biceps as she worked him, churning her hips, the hair at the juncture of their hips grating against the others. Their skin gleamed in the half light, slick with sweat, and his hands gathered up her curls and flipped them over her shoulder before sliding his palms across her damp temples reverently.

Her lips parted, quirked at the corner as she watched him. It twisted her face into something sinister, and there was something about watching those lips crook with wretched delight, her skin luminous with perspiration and the oh so tight fucking slit he was now driving into that had him feeling like he was falling forward, arms wide as he embraced the descent. He bucked into her, driving her hips down into his with a hard grip, watching her breasts rebound, her mouth open in sweet anguish. She was beginning to tremor around him, her elbows weakening with the weight of holding herself up as it rocked her, and he drove into her faster, harder, grabbing out for her and clutching her to his chest to feel her slick skin and her ragged breath on him, as her husky voice cried out into his ear and he fought to keep a steady pace but failed, hammering into her without restraint until he was both spilling into her and crushing his lips to hers.

And then he was melting into the sheets, limbs pooling out beneath him with exhaustion. She had already sagged against him, burrowing into his chest. He watched the ceiling without awareness.

"I don't want this night to end," he heard her murmur from his armpit.

"You don't have to let it," he promised, clutching her. "Even if we have nothing else," he whispered against her hair. "This is ours."

"…Well, that, and we still haven't eaten dinner."

"That, too."

* * *

"And then, when I woke up, he was gone."

Bulma's head sank into her limply folded arms on the dining room table. Chi Chi slid the potatoes with a spatula onto Bulma's plate, watching her friend with a troubled frown.

"I just don't understand," Chi Chi mused, holding the cast iron skillet with a moue. "What kind of man fucks you like that and then ditches you at the hotel?"

"Mine," came her friend's muffled voice forlornly.

"Well…." Chi Chi started garnishing the cheeseburgers (including the extra onions) she'd made Bulma for dinner. "I guess he'll call you when he can."

Bulma scowled, straightening and kicking the leg of the chair next to her. "Shyeah," she snorted. "Whenever he 'gets' time. That could be from here to next month!"

Chi Chi placed the burger in front of Bulma and sighed, watching Bulma angrily squirt ketchup all over it and impale her potatoes on her fork. "I'm so mad I don't even know if I'll bother picking up the phone when he does call." Bulma knocked back her chocolate milk and glared at her plate.

Chi Chi couldn't blame her.

She'd received a phone call earlier that day from her dearest friend, who was…

Sniffling.

"Cheech," Bulma had said shakily. "Can I come over later?"

Chi Chi's hands had stilled over the keyboard, and she pressed the phone harder to her ear.

"Bulma, what's wrong?" She asked with deadly focus.

"Um, I need to talk."

Throughout Chi Chi's office, alarms might as well have began their blaring, emergency lights wheeling and bathing her office in red.

"What. Happened." She bit out.

And Chi Chi had both expected and still been stunned to hear Bulma's small voice answer: "It's about Vegeta."

Chi Chi could plainly see that her friend had, for better or worse, fallen in love. She'd counted on Bulma responding to something like this by just getting angry, really,  _really_  angry, or blowing it off when Vegeta had left her at a hotel room with only a handwritten note to make up for his absence. Bulma was pretty relaxed and understanding with Chi Chi and the rest of the gang. Even Goku, who loved everybody wholly and equally, was still going on about how great Bulma was since she had fixed the very extensive laundry list of problems his Ford Escort was having and only charged him for parts.

Except, as Chi Chi would soon discover, Vegeta's unfortunate gesture was after a very romantic night, and the note itself had been the equivalent to a "brb in a few weeks."

Bulma had been moping since she'd woken up to a cold bed on Sunday, crying into her rubber mallet and needle nose pliers all Monday as she tried to piece together a transmission with shaky hands. She'd hung up the 'Closed' sign promptly at 4 and arrived at Chi Chi's with twin track marks made by her tears on her greasy face before collapsing face down into Chi Chi's couch with a sob.

She'd only gotten the story once she'd pried the note from Bulma's fingers.

Chi Chi cleared her throat as she watched Bulma rip her hamburger into little shreds, occasionally popping one into her mouth and chewing angrily. Talking it out had at least taken Bulma from wreck-levels-of-dejection to fuming wrath.

"So," Chi Chi said firmly. "Vegeta had an unexpected and urgent work trip. He will call you soon." She paused for effect. "…You'll survive."

Chi Chi could admit she was coming off a little callous. But she'd been suspicious of Vegeta's motives, or at least his commitment, since the beginning, and she wasn't afraid to tell anyone that. It was hard to sympathize with Bulma when the man she'd chosen was a first class bastard. He'd made an enemy out of Chi Chi when he'd threatened her Goku, and now, as far as Chi Chi was concerned, she and Vegeta had been elevated to  _arch_  enemies.

But Chi Chi was hoping that her aloof approach would strengthen Bulma and make her practical and self-reliant friend perk up in no time. Chi Chi was furious—the guy had basically done a dine-and-dash on her friend—but she was concerned most with protecting Bulma. And that meant getting her over it. Now.

"You don't get it!" Bulma yelled into her plate. "He never told me, never indicated he had somewhere else to be. He just  _left_. The tab had been paid, a note was left—"

_I'll be traveling the next few weeks for work. Will call or text when I can. Use your key. Vegeta_

"— with no apology or consideration for how I might feel about waking up alone. We've been through this," she muttered indignantly under her breath, "last time we talked about the 'boyfriend' word. I thought he was working on being more considering of my feelings. What the fuck." Bulma's head fell hard into her palm, and she fixed the note in her lap—now becoming well-worn, imprinted with greasy fingerprints—with a look of burning hatred.

"Okay. So worst case scenario," Chi Chi began, trying to keep her voice smooth, "Vegeta bailed on you."

A muffled sob escaped from under the wild blue curls across the table.

"Did he realize halfway into, into making love to me, that I wasn't good in bed or something?" Bulma squeaked. "I thought," she choked, "that we were past this."

Chi Chi hurried to turn the mood. "But that's a slim possibility, right? You've had no other indication that Vegeta wanted to break things off. So we can only assume Vegeta, in true Vegeta fashion," Chi Chi said sarcastically, "was just insensitive and didn't realize that human beings normally tell each other these kinds of things in advance. He'll eventually call, and everything will be howdy-do, and then you just wait for the dumb ass to get home so you can set him straight. Right?"

Bulma didn't budge. Chi Chi stood, sighing, leaning over to refill Bulma's glass of chocolate milk and pat her back supportively.

"I think that's likely what happened," she assured Bulma one more time.

"It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't make me question what I did wrong, I guess," Bulma admitted with some weariness. "It makes me feel inadequate, or taken advantage of. I just wouldn't have ever expected this behavior after the night we had. It was the most romantic night of my life," she admitted roughly. "He gave me goo-goo eyes all night. I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world! And then after we, you know, we ate a delicious dinner, and we tried out the hot tub, and well, you know, and—" her voice broke, and Chi Chi struggled not to roll her eyes with impatience—"and after we shared a bottle of wine and watched tv, I fell asleep wrapped in his arms. And he told me, he told me that he looked forward to doing this again—" Bulma startled Chi Chi by rapping her fist on the table. "I mean, the man rented a penthouse and I didn't even get the chance to jump on the bed!"

Chi Chi's mouth slanted wryly.

The girls turned when there was a sound at the door. There was the sound of a key in the lock, the knob turned, and then Goku's face was smiling back at them.

"Hey, you two!" He shut the door behind him, setting his brief case happily on the table inside the door. His face fell with concern. "Is something wrong?"

"Goku," Bulma inquired, eyes red with two days of misery, though her eyebrows were starting to draw angrily down around them. "I need to ask you a personal question."

Goku immediately looked uncomfortable, approaching the women cautiously. "Uh, okay."

"If you and Chi Chi rented a hotel room and had a night of, well, you know." She looked at Chi Chi for help. "A real sexy, wonderful night. A night of debauchery."

"Like when we went to North City that weekend," Chi Chi offered.

Goku's eyebrows shot up. "Oh."

"Yeah. Say you had to leave the next day to go on a business trip. Would you have left the next morning without telling Chi Chi? Just, not discussed it with her? Not even told her goodbye?"

"No, of course not. Chi Chi would kill me."

Chi Chi nodded in agreement while Bulma's scowl deepened. She turned to Chi Chi. "I think I need to make Vegeta more afraid of me," she snarled.

Chi Chi hoped she'd get the chance.

She scooted a cheeseburger toward Goku, who slipped into the seat across from her and immediately began putting it in his mouth. Once he'd gulped down half the cheeseburger, he looked back up between the women. "Isn't this Bulma's favorite dinner? I mean, tied with waffles."

The two women shared a look.

"Chi Chi made me dinner because I had kind of a bad day," Bulma explained tentatively. "Goku," she interjected, suddenly fierce, "has Vegeta ever had a romantic relationship before?"

Goku's eyes widened. "Uh." He squirmed. Both women were staring at him with scary attentiveness as they puzzled something out, waiting on his answer before drawing their conclusion. "I've been working there about four years now, and I don't think I've ever seen him with another woman that wasn't a client or an employee. He's usually, you know, just interested in being by himself…" He watched the women, hoping that had been the right answer.

The women shared another conspiratorial look.

Bulma leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Do you think he's capable of having a romantic relationship?"

Goku choked on his burger.

"Based on how the man interacts with everyone at work," Chi Chi added supportively, "or what you've seen of him when he's out and about with the Two Stooges."

Bulma watched him with predatory attention.

Goku could have sworn he felt a trickle of sweat begin its descent down his temple.

"Well, he doesn't really seem like much of a people person," he managed, "and I've never seen him with any girlfriends or anything. He might have flirted with someone when we were at Czar Bar once—"

The way Bulma looked like she was about to erupt into flames told him that was the wrong answer.

He laughed nervously. "I mean, I doubt anything came of it. And that was a couple years ago. He just doesn't have much patience at work with anyone. He doesn't share his life with us or anything." He looked back and forth between them. "Is that the right answer?"

Bulma sighed, leaning back into her chair, looking collected for the first time since she'd arrived. "Goku, look. Vegeta and I had a really lovely Saturday night at a beautiful hotel. If you know what I mean." She peered at him uncertainly. Goku nodded innocently. Sometimes she didn't know how sex between Goku and Cheech worked sometimes. He was just such a friendly, guileless guy that it didn't seem possible he could have ardor and  _passions_. …Did Chi Chi have to drug him to get him to participate? "Then, when I woke up in the morning, he was gone, and he'd left a note saying he had a business trip and he'd talk to me soon," she explained straightforwardly. "What do you make of that?"

Goku's eyes widened. "He didn't tell you in advance he was leaving?"

"No!" Bulma hollered, her boots hitting the kitchen floor loudly as she straightened and leaned forward murderously. "No indication he had plans. He was gone before I woke up."

Goku frowned, biting the last of his cheeseburger and chewing thoughtfully. "You know," Goku supplied finally, "I think Vegeta really likes you. He's not interested in being with any of us the way he is you." Bulma's eyes widened with the admission as Goku continued to puzzle it out. "I think, most likely, he didn't think it was that big of a deal. He  _did_  leave you a note. I wouldn't have gotten a note. I doubt he thought you'd react this way. You're pretty level-headed, he probably thought you'd be understanding. And the trip was probably something important. Vegeta has a habit of getting blinders on when it's something work related." Goku sucked the grease off his fingers and then wiped them on his cloth napkin. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Bulma stared at him with an expression he couldn't decipher.

"You know what," she finally said, mostly to herself. "I think you're probably right. He didn't mean to hurt my feelings. He just had work to do. That seems very appropriately Vegeta."

Bulma sent Chi Chi one last glance and then speared her potatoes.

"Well, I guess all you can do is wait for him to call," Chi Chi submitted uncertainly.

"Oh, no," Bulma said through a mouth full of cheeseburger. "Oh, ho ho ho ho," she laughed low and maniacally. "That man doesn't get to talk to me until he comes back. And then I'll be the one 'talking' to him."

Chi Chi met Goku's wide eyes with apprehension.

* * *

Vegeta allowed himself to look up at the front of the brick apartment complex for only a moment before dashing up the front steps. The bottom of his coat flicked around his knees in the cool, dry evening, autumn already spreading over North City.

This was his last lead, and if it was a dead end like the others, he'd return to his hotel for the day and go ahead and give Bulma a call to let her know he'd arrived safely. Which was probably belated, as it was Friday, and he had yet to get in touch with her. For whatever reason, he didn't want to report back to Bulma without a solid yes or no answer. But this was one of many attempts this week to get what he'd come for, and he was beginning to lose his original motivation.

Vegeta took the elevator impatiently, and the doors opened with painful slowness at the sixth floor. He strode down the hall, clutching a small paper with the number '623' scrawled on it.

The door seemed to appear out of nowhere as he passed it, and he came to a sharp halt. Though his hand stuttered as he went to rap on the door with his knuckles, he fortified himself, knocking firmly.

He waited, unable to hear anything from behind the door, the corner of his mouth dipping south at the prolonged silence. He considered calling the whole debacle quits when there were hurried steps from inside and all the sounds of someone fumbling with a lock.

The door finally opened upon a short, willowy man in a button-up plaid shirt. "Hello? What can I do for you?" A woman's homely face peered over the man's shoulder quizzically.

"Tarble?" Vegeta asked uncertainly.


	20. Chapter 20

Bulma flipped onto her stomach and kicked her bare leg out over…

Nothing.

Her own surprised and throaty snore rocked her awake, her eyes springing open to blink at the unusually cold space beside her.

Bulma abruptly sat up in bed, smearing hair from her eyes and blinking groggily. "Jerk," she grumbled, batting his pillow onto the floor with the back of her hand, then kicking it further away for good measure. "Jerk, jerk, jerk." She dragged herself out of bed, peeling the panties from her butt.

She managed to find Vegeta's kitchen by running her hands along the wall, unable yet to pry open her eyes at the early hour.

Then made a mess trying to pour water into the coffee maker with barely cracked lids. "Thanks a lot, jerk," she whined as spilled water ran in tendrils over the counter and soaked the front of her nightgown.

She pressed her finger to the button, and the coffee pot ticked on, gurgling as she rummaged through the cupboards for her favorite coffee cup. It was thick, heavy, with a solid handle and the sad face of cartoon character Droopy, complaining, 'Is it Friday yet?'

"Great for bashing over jerk's heads," she muttered.

Bulma's phone began to vibrate on the kitchen counter, and her eyes slid sideways.

It was the tenth time this week, and yes, she'd been counting.

She snorted. "Yeah, right, jerk."

And let Vegeta go to voicemail hell.

* * *

Eighteen didn't allow herself to be anyone's punching bag.

That didn't stop her from closing the door to her office and beating herself up this afternoon.

She fingered the engagement ring on her desk, flipping it with a long, neatly manicured finger, watching it spin on the smooth wood.

_It's not you, it's me. I need to understand myself, and then I can come back to you._

Krillin had taken it well enough. Given how good-natured he was anyway, she was not surprised. Though it just made her feel worse.

_I'll always love you, Juu. Please know that I'm here for you, if you need someone to talk to. Meanwhile, keep the ring until you come to a decision._

There was something wrong with her. Something that made her feel tangled up and breathless, as if she were stuck on a tilt-a-whirl, blinded by stage lights and black sky spinning out of control. And Eighteen was not a woman who tolerated a breach of control.

He'd patted her arm, and then made his way slowly out of the restaurant, a crestfallen resignation on his face. She watched him walk away from her, excuse himself as he wound through the crowd, with jealousy for the life she may no longer be a part of. Of all things to feel at that moment. Jealousy.

She put her chin in her hand and contemplated the sleek wood of her desk.

* * *

"Take that!"

Bulma threw her toothbrush down on the sink.

"And this!"

She threw this week's clothes on the floor.

"And that!"

She opened Vegeta's nightstand drawer and tossed in the last remaining symbol of her singledom: her vibrator.

Bulma folded her arms over her chest and surveyed the damage.

If this is what moving in with a boyfriend felt like, it was really disappointing.

She sank onto the bed and rested her chin in her hands. "This would be way more fun if you were here, and we could be excited about it together," she said softly. She fell back against the coverlets, watching the ceiling fan turn sluggishly. "I wish you would argue with me about where I put my panties, and how I leave hair in the shower drain. And bitch at me about how my coffee cup always leaves a ring on the counter, or how I drank the last of the milk." The corner of her lips pulled downward, and she sighed one last time. "This doesn't feel like home without you," her small voice objected in the empty condo.

Bulma was at a point mentally that Chi Chi was calling 'denial' but Bulma was branding 'optimism.' Chi Chi was still in Yamcha-Regret-Mode, a weird line she refused she was straddling where Chi Chi understood principally that Bulma's ex was no good, but wanted to build a boyfriend effigy in his likeness anyway. Did Vegeta give Bulma flowers, buy her jewelry? Did he strew rose petals from the front door to the bath before she got home from work? Well, then, what good  _was_  he?

Sure, Vegeta had abruptly left to take care of some business. The  _correctness_  of his action was up for debate, absolutely, and Bulma could acknowledge that. But the man had asked her to move in, hadn't he? And what had changed? This was the same proud man who'd given up a golden court case and a promotion he'd been waiting on for years for her before they'd even began dating. So she would have faith. After all, relationships required a bit of work, and a bit of faith.

But homes required a bit of…homeyness, too. Her brows knit, considering. Even if Vegeta couldn't be here, a home should still feel comfortable and comforting, warm and inviting. Vegeta's home was impossibly clean, which was weird, and too-perfectly decorated, which was kind of alienating. Her parents had money, and even their home wasn't decorated so...competently, like someone had used a protractor to calculate the room's geometry on a piece of graph paper before hanging the banal black and white picture of a city horizon over the bed  _just_ so. Bulma made a sour face.

But even if all her things weren't there, lying in shambles, even if the cupboards weren't full of cake mix and chips instead of protein powder, even if Vegeta wasn't there to entertain her, the damned place should still feel like her own, if she was going to shack up with him. Right? And yet, still, there was something missing.

Bulma snapped her fingers.

And she knew just what it was!

_Scratch_  was missing!

Bulma rolled off the bed and tugged on her jacket one more time for the night. She was going to head over to her parent's, scoop Scratch into his cat carrier, cooing as he hissed furiously, and beg him to forgive her as they made their way back to Vegeta's. And maybe she'd bring some of her work, too, to give her something to take her mind off of this oppressive condo. And she'd bring some of her unimportant crud for good measure. Maybe she'd throw some junk here, and leave some trash on the floor there. If that's what it took to help her adjust to the life without Vegeta that had been imposed on her, then, by gosh, she'd commit.

She was going to treat this home like a home. That would be a test of  _Vegeta's_  faith.

* * *

Goku knew he'd lost before the game had even been called.

"Goldfish!" Chi Chi squealed.

He folded as his fiance sniggered, gathering up all the cards and shuffling them, preparing to deal again.

"I think I'll pass, Cheech." Goku stood up from his chair, bent and downcast.

Chi Chi blinked up in surprise at him. She knew Goku was a competitive game player, but he wasn't typically a sore loser. This beaten man schtick seemed a bit out of the ordinary for Goku. She frowned, puzzled. "Uh, Goku, honey? Where you going?"

"I'll be back," he called as he pulled on his jacket at the door, his broad back to her.

She sprang from her chair. "Is something wrong?" She watched his slow movements with concern.

He turned back around with his winning smile, but it was small and subdued. "I'll be right back. I'm just gonna go for a walk." He squeezed her arm affectionately, and then opened the front door and walked through it.

The breeze ruffled Goku's hair as he shrugged his hands in his pockets, tensing against the autumn chill, and started walking.

As he made his way down the street, the wind blowing leaves under his feet, he watched with detachment the lively neighborhood unfurl before him in the dusk.

To his left, the dry cleaner glanced up and then waved at him through the storefront window, before turning away to continue tagging and hanging up bagged outfits. And then Mai Lee, sweeping the front steps, who happily let him know her youngest had paid back his gambling debts, and then called Goku her sweet boy endearingly in Chinese.

A woman and her young son stood patiently outside a food truck as the man inside assembled their gyros, and the boy bobbed up and down in anticipation. His hands finally closed around the stuffed pita with joy. Catching Goku's eye, he smiled big, and Goku lifted his hand to congratulate him with a two fingered sign of victory.

Two city blocks, a few crosswalks, a few more times he was stopped by a neighbor to talk. Goku gave time to them all, smiling genuinely despite his feeble mood.

He hopped up the steps of the temple grounds, lanterns, aglow under the eaves of the shrine, beckoning. Taking a step inside, Goku spotted his grandfather's urn familiarly.

He bent to his knees respectfully.

"Grandpa," Goku called softly, his eyes drawing upward to the familiar orange and yellow urn in the little locker. Someone had recently visited his grandpa's neighbor; a spring of star anise and the ashy remains of incense lay at the foot of the woman's photograph.

"Grandpa, what should I do? I want to make Chi Chi and our fathers proud, but each day is a fight I don't want to win. I follow Dad's lead, but I am increasingly skeptical of where it leads. Please give me direction."

When he stepped out of the doorway of the shrine, he glanced quietly around the yard, at the few people and the families who were leaving the temple, at the horizon at the foot of the city, its lights painting the belly of the night sky a brackish violet.

A child was skipping around his parents legs across from him as they hurried to their car. The man placed his hand on the child's collar, stilling him, as the mother smiled beside them. Goku watched them make their way across the yard.

And then was astonished to see the back of the little boy's baseball uniform, a name writ above his number.

_Gohan_.

"To remain like a child, and to always choose friends and family," Goku spoke under his breath, becoming straight and tall as he regarded the family now growing small across the yard.

* * *

Bulma worried her lip, staring at the blank face of her phone. "Stupid, stupid," she berated herself waspishly, but it didn't stop her from checking her email just once more.

Day 16 of self-imposed isolation, and it was taking its toll.

Status: Still holding out. Condition: Fair to poor. Her sunny strength was beginning to fray, and clouds were billowing from the north, bringing chilly winds of doubt and total, utter self-depreciating misery.

No one could say Vegeta was an idiot. At least, not the "It's been several years since my last oil change why did my car blow up/ I didn't pay my water bill why did they shut my water off/ I kissed another woman why is my girlfriend so mad" kind of complete nincompoop. Blinded by a relentless stubbornness and snobby self-absorption sometimes, absolutely, but not a  _complete_  idiot, not in the way where he couldn't perceive the consequences of his actions. The question with Vegeta was, rather, would he accept responsibility for his actions, or completely bypass the given logic and try to secure another route?

But know the terrain of consequences, he would, which was why his refusal to accept her motorcycle and his taking off for two weeks without preamble were just so  _frustrating:_ precisely because he was a man who knew better, but made the wrong decision anyway in an attempt to rewrite the logic of his given universe. He demanded things go how he wanted them to, and everything was just supposed to lie down and  _be_  that way. He was a man who could read the wind and ascertain the tea leaves, but not a man who would just accept that the answer they'd given was the only way. And she admired him for it, even as it made her want to whap him upside the head.

Bulma had dutifully played her part of strong-willed-woman-who-didn't-take-no-shit by not answering Vegeta's phone calls or texts for a week and a half. And finally, because Vegeta wasn't an idiot, he'd left her alone. But the last few days of no texts or calls—despite how unheeded they had been in the first place—had been painfully, tortuously, traitorously discouraging! Why hadn't anyone warned her that his silence would have the opposite effect on her? It wasn't punishing him; it was punishing  _herself!_  She was starting to entertain the idea of calling  _him_  and demanding to know why he hadn't called, like a clingy, crazy girlfriend.

She glanced over at her phone one more time.

And it rang.

She fumbled as she snatched it, almost dropping it before mashing the button and answering in a rush. "Hello?"

"Hey, sweet cheeks. I'm gonna need your help with something."

She growled in frustration. "What do you want, Raditz," she barked.

"Woah, there." She could practically see him hold up his hands in placation, his chumminess suddenly dampened. "Did I call at a bad time?"

She huffed dramatically. "Yes," she admitted, and then recanted. "No," she corrected firmly. Raditz felt like his head might spin off. "Things are actually slow today," Bulma tried to assert brightly, as if to convince him of how well she was doing without Vegeta. "Slow," she clarified, "and  _quiet_ ," she snarled.

"Uhhhhhh." Raditz paused. "I think I know what this is about. So let's change the subject. I need some help." She heard him straighten, the chair squeaking with his weight, his voice suddenly turning polished. "If you could spare a moment, we would be exceedingly grateful if we could get your mechanical expertise on something here at the office."

"Oh yeah? Like what," she snit, even as Raditz was quite cleverly smoothing down her hackles with his submissive customer service tone.

"I'm afraid we're in need of a handyman—" he cleared his throat as Bulma's eyes narrowed dangerously—"a handy  _woman_ , rather, who could help us resolve an issue of both some crumbling plaster and computer network troubles. So not mechanical at all, but it's all the same to me. I thought it'd be easiest to kill two birds with one exceptionally beautiful stone such as yourself."

"Flatterer," she chided, refusing to be wooed and folding her arms over her chest.

She felt bad for taking her frustrations out on Raditz, who was making every effort to appease her. It wasn't like he had been the one to confess his undying love for her with the solid weight of his body on top hers, his gracious mouth on her thighs, his ripped abs pliant under her hands before promptly dumping her at dawn. No, that had been another idiot. Fuck it. He was now an idiot.

She sighed roughly, massaging the bridge of her nose. "Look, I'll be there about three. I can leave the shop in the hands of my assistant without it going up in flames for about two hours, but that's all I have to give today."

"Our partners send their deepest gratitude. Wow, Ms. Briefs, you are just so generous, and wonderful, and great—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she issued dismissively before hanging up on Raditz. "He better not be sucking up because he thinks he doesn't have to pay me," she muttered.

She didn't bother changing into something more, uh, clean. Vegetas' staff's stuffy, virgin lawyer eyes would just have to deal with her oil-stained everything and ratty head scarf. Who was she looking good for today, anyway, if not her idiot boyfriend? Besides, she thought, stilling. She didn't even know that she'd get to meet them in a more dignified fashion, if this was Vegeta's way of breaking up with her...Or if she chose to break it off with him.

She clamped down on her panic and stuffed her tools into her red backpack. They weren't over, she assured herself. What were sixteen days apart in the how-many-ever-thousands-of-days-of-a-serious-relationship's-life? Vegeta was just an idiot. Just an idiot, that's all. She hefted a wrench, turning it over in her hand and pondering just how it might feel to whack him over the head with it.

The  _idiot_.

As she shrugged on her jacket against the cool fall weather, calling out to her assistant to hold down the fort, the front door dinged and a man in a plain blue uniform strolled in backwards, blocking the view of the package in his arms.

Bulma slung her backpack over her shoulder and strolled over to receive him when he turned around with an oversized bouquet of dark red roses. No spray of frothy carnations, no, but silky, creamy white "forgive me" tulips against blood-red rose petals.

Bulma's jaw worked stupidly.

"Delivery for Bulma Briefs." The errand boy winked at her, setting a card beside the fat vase. "Enjoy."

She didn't even bother watching his retreating back, instead gazing at the extra large bouquet in astonishment.

"Can you believe this?" She spat, sending the roses a withering look with her arms crossed. "He thinks this fixes everything." She waved her hand contemptuously at the enormous bouquet.

Her assistant gawked helplessly at her.

She snatched the card from the counter and flipped it open.

_Soon._

Her face went slack as the anger seeped from her.

Her assistant crept away, giving her some space with a healthy mixture of respect and fear.

"Idiot," she mumbled, unable to help the smile curling on her face, before shaking it off with a self-conscious scowl.

* * *

The muffled din of an office at work was reaching its climax at about three, with just an hour to go until the last day of the work week. This would be their first proper day's end since the firm opened, an unprecedented 4 o'clock dismissal, and they were all chatting away with excitement and relief in anticipation of the weekend. Mr. no'Ouji wasn't in the office again, Raditz was leaving early for a 'meeting,' and Nappa's door was closed tight, only a brave individual peering in between the blinds discovering that he was hard at work losing a game of Solitaire. The staff was pretty sure his unofficial job description was no more complicated than simply to field the phone calls of snooping reporters anyway. Anyone who'd been on the receiving end of a phone call with Nappa could commiserate.

The staff quieted and looked over as the bell to the front door dinged, and then gaped as a small woman in stained, shapeless coveralls and a handkerchief knotted atop her frizzy head sidled in.

One of the paralegals reluctantly stood to field her. "May I help you?"

The staff watched curiously as the woman put her flattened hand to her temple and saluted with a slanted smile. "I'm here to fix the internet."

She knelt over her backpack and drew a sledgehammer from its bowels, straightening as Raditz drifted out to receive her.

"It's in Vegeta's office?"

Raditz nodded, slipping his hands in his pockets.

"Then I'm going to tear the wall out and reinstall new drywall," she explained. "I'll doink around with your network once that's been done."

"Uh," Raditz said dumbly. She might as well have told him to fuck off in Swahili. "I have no idea what just came out of your mouth. Can you just get it done by the end of the day? I have a date to meet soon."

Blazing blue eyes turned slowly to meet his, and Raditz froze in place.

"Are you  _serious?_ "

Raditz balked. "Why are you being so mean?" He leaned in close, whispering. "Did you start your period or something?"

To the office's shock, Bulma grabbed Raditz by the neck tie and yanked the much taller man to her much shorter level, snarling in his face. "Ask me that ever again and I'll answer with my chainsaw."

To the staff's shock, Raditz bowed his head to the greasy little woman and replied meekly, "Yes, ma'am."

The woman let him go, ambling over to Vegeta's office and surveying the wall. She pushed up her sleeves and put her hands on her hips.

"It figures," she began to mutter, yanking out a tape measure and a pry bar. "The man just won't quit. Vegeta no'Ouji, when you get back, you're dead, you hear me?" She sent the sledgehammer careening into the plaster. "Dead!"

The office, hushed, watched her work for the last half hour of their day in fascination.

* * *

The whole apartment reeked of vinegar and cabbage.

"I'm just so mad and confused. He makes me feel stupid for liking him. Like, who would put up with his shit, except for a big dummy?" Bulma slurped noodles. "But he's just so gosh darned cute that I worry I'll swoon and fall right into his arms when he shows up again." She set the bowl of noodles with dismay on the nightstand.

Chi Chi chewed her kimchi with an open mouth and cocked one droll eyebrow at Bulma. "Frankly, I don't see the appeal."

Bulma languished on Chi Chi's bed, banging her head on the side of the mattress, hair spilling down. "I've had over two weeks to consider how I'll act when he gets back, and I still don't have a solid plan. I've avoided him with sheer pride and gumption so far, but as soon as he shows his handsome, well-cut face," Bulma lamented, "I know I'm just going to cave. I'm just going to say, 'It's okay,' like I used to with Yamcha, and then beg him for  _his_  forgiveness. It's just pitiful."

"I know," her friend reinforced flatly through a mouth full of cabbage.

"And it's not just that I miss him terribly, because I do—"

Chi Chi tried not to roll her eyes as she slathered both hot mustard and oil and vinegar all over a generous helping of fried hotdogs.

"—but I miss…I miss…." Bulma pinned Chi Chi with a harrowing look, upside down. "I miss the D."

Chi Chi's face screwed with incredulity. "Is he really  _that_  good in bed?" She balked with disbelief.

"Oh, ho ho ho ho." Bulma bellowed. "So good." Her voice got small. "Sooooo good."

"I think you need to experiment more with other men and then come back to compare." Chi Chi put her nose in the air as she said it, reminding Bulma how she was perfectly content without an older sister. "He's, like, your second. He practically rebroke your hymen. He's probably not even that good," Chi Chi argued. "He just  _seems_  like a firework show compared to zero-on-the-Richter-scale-Yamcha."

"He reciprocates." Bulma stared pointedly at Chi Chi in the way that only two women openly talking about their sex lives do and that was known to intimidate less-than-confident men. "Yamcha didn't. Yamcha wanted and wanted but never gave." Bulma made a sullen face, but then a smile stretched her cheeks. "While Vegeta has a black belt in tongue action," Bulma disclosed in a whisper, winking suggestively. "Uuuuughhhhhhh." She fell onto her back, hands over her heart. "I never get tired of it."

"You have some questionable priorities," Chi Chi chided.

Bulma swatted at her friend's foot. "I like this guy. Deal with it."

"I am. This is me dealing with it."

"I just worry, that, you know, if I try to talk to him about how he hurt my feelings, it will go like it always does when we talk about feelings. Either it will implode," Bulma's arms flailed wildly, miming an explosion, "because Vegeta's inability to process, you know, feelings. Or we will end up without any pants on." Bulma sighed dramatically, then righted herself on Chi Chi's bed. "I'm beginning to see a pattern."

"He's trying to pull the wool over your eyes." Chi Chi tsked, watching Bulma cooly. "He has you under his thumb, right where he wants you."

"In the heat of the moment, I don't care what's blindfolding me so long as he's in between my legs," Bulma contradicted.

Chi Chi choked on her kimchi and hotdogs. "You've got it bad," she finally managed. "I think I'm going to have to commit you."

Chi Chi snickered as Bulma lunged to pull Chi Chi's hair but just fell off the bed.

"You can't just let him get away with this!" Chi Chi asserted suddenly, mashing the last bite of hotdog into her face and turning back to the tv as the commercial break of her favorite drama ended. "You have to keep your dignity, B," Chi Chi declared through a mouth full of food, slapping her hand on the nightstand, "unlike these weak-willed, meek women who get trampled on by their man like it's their life's purpose." She waved her hands at the corny, soapy drama on the tv screen, and suddenly Bulma didn't think Chi Chi was referring to just her anymore. "You have to put your foot down and pull your big girl panties up. Tell him: 'You can't just treat me like a side thing. It's all or nothing. I'm either a woman you show respect and dignity or peace out. Treat me like I'm your woman or g.t.f.o.'"

Bulma was nearly sliding off the bed into a puddle on the floor. "Why is he so bad at emotional intimacy?" She asked the floor.

"End it and I'll set you up on a blind date tomorrow night." Chi Chi wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Bulma sent her a horizontal look of horror from the ground. "I reject your offer. This is my last attempt at putting myself out there. If this doesn't work, I'm gathering up my cats and my Garfield the cat figurines and I'm calling it good."

Chi Chi's eyes were glued to the characters arguing and weeping in turn on the tv screen, even as she polished off a final plate of macaroons that she'd hidden under her chair. "Well, then, it's time to pull out the big guns and lock him down." She licked crumbs from her fingers. "Get knocked up."

She jumped, spilling food, as Bulma let out a screech.

"Are you crazy?!" Bulma crawled over to Cheech and shook her by her shoulders. "I'm not having a baby just because misery loves company!"

"Being the only one looking forward to motherhood in our group is lonely." Chi Chi pouted, before turning away, indifferent to the levity of Bulma's possible sacrifice. "I'm just saying, you could forget to take a pill or two, and I wouldn't hold it against you."

Bulma looked at her friend in dramatic shock. "For shame," she finally whispered, shaking her head slowly. "You have really sunk low."

Chi Chi snatched pillows off the bed from her perch on the recliner and started chucking them at Bulma's head. "You shut up!" She beat the last pillow against Bulma's head over and over, muffling Bulma's shrieks. "You don't know what it's like, getting fat on enough food to satisfy a whole football team and feeling my face ache from all the hormonal crying and smiling I alternate between all day! Go ahead, complain about your perfect sex life some more! Go ahead!"

The pillow beat into the side of Bulma's head before she managed to rip it out of her friend's hands and pull Chi Chi by her ankles to the floor. Chi Chi landed with a thump, crying out in surprise, and Bulma's hands descended to her sides, tickling as Chi Chi squealed in laughter and distress.

"Stop! Stop!"

"Suggest I get knocked up again, bitch!"

Chi Chi couldn't respond through her painful cackling. "Stop! Stop! You're torturing a pregnant woman! Gokuuuu! Gokuuuuu!" Chi Chi jerked, her face crumpling. "Ow! Ow! My stomach!"

Bulma froze, hands hovering. "Ohmygod," she breathed in alarm, the mood suddenly killed. "Chi Chi, are you hurt? Are you okay? Do we need to go to the hospital?"

"No, you idiot," Chi Chi complained, looking sourly up at Bulma and rubbing her side. "I just get all these aches and pains as my belly grows. I think you made me pull a muscle."

Bulma's face fell into sympathy. "Aww, you poor thing. C'mere."

Bulma helped her friend sit up and began kneading her narrow back companionably. The pair quietly watched the characters on the tv screen.

"I haven't told my father," Chi Chi finally said softly.

The hands at her back stalled.

"WHAT?!" Bulma's face peeked over her shoulder. "Why the hell not?"

Chi Chi sighed. "We got pregnant before we even got married," she explained forlornly. "I don't want to disappoint him!" Her voice rose, and she was practically wailing now. "I don't want my father to think less of me or be mad at my poor Goku!"

She sniffled in a way that was so utterly pitiful that Bulma began squeezing her stiff neck, earning a little satisfied groan.

"You should just get pregnant so we can be miserable together," Chi Chi complained.

Bulma couldn't mask her look of horror. "How about we don't and say we did."

"You're so selfish!"


	21. Chapter 21

"Um, come on in."

Vegeta opened the door and stood out of the way, allowing Tarble and his wife Gure to enter first.

Vegeta surveyed his condo with barely restrained anxiety.

And then released an audible breath.

His place had not been trashed. That was a good sign. Dishes were done, counters were wiped down, and even his laundry sat folded atop the dryer in the utility room. Vegeta, spying the water droplets in the sink, calculated that she'd been here as late as this morning. The little transparent beads clutching the side of the sink indicated that she couldn't be too mad, then, and that he still had a chance yet...

"Uh, please excuse the mess," Vegeta apologized, noticing the engine atop his kitchen table, draining oil into a shallow pan.

"Are you into cars, Vegeta?" Tarble asked cheerfully, letting his stuffed duffel bag slide from his shoulders onto the kitchen floor heavily.

"Something like that." Vegeta looked sidelong at the engine with suspicion. She wouldn't have left that unless deliberately trying to get under his skin, would she have? What other surprises lay in wait for him?

"Do you tinker, Vegeta?" Gure's small voice queried from the other side of the room as she let go of the suitcase handle.

Vegeta had to grit his teeth on the indignity of the word  _tinker_. "I share my place with my significant other." Vegeta cleared his throat, feeling his ears heat. "She's a mechanic."

"Oh?" Tarble's face lit up with interest. "How interesting!"

"Are you a cat person?" Gure's high voice asked sweetly.

Vegeta's head snapped up to see Scratch weaving between his brother's legs before falling onto his back for belly rubs, and both Tarble and Gure leaned over to indulge him.

Vegeta eyed the cat warily. "No," he answered, flatly.

* * *

If it wasn't for the pounding and general crashing of plaster in the other room, the men in the office watching the woman working on putting a building back together was for nothing other than the dumb thing bleating between their legs. Bulma had—rather obtusely, in Raditz's opinion—shucked her modest coveralls this afternoon in favor of some overalls, unbuttoned and knotted at the hip, and a white—sheer white!—crop top, baring her pinched waist, her compact arms, and the tight planes of her lower back for all the office to see like some kind of '90s pop star wannabe. While Raditz could admit his employees weren't exactly a bunch of dumbnut army privates setting eyes on a woman after a year in the field, they were, still, men. She was gleaming with sweat, wayward curls from her bun curling against her neck in an inviting way that even had Raditz deeply pitying what Vegeta would do to the male staff if he were to come back ever.

Though he was plenty fond of Bulma, Raditz still harbored some surprise for Vegeta's, er, choice in girlfriend, because Vegeta had always gone for—and by gone for, Raditz meant cooly spent the night with after the women did all the pursuing—women with polished hair and manicures and slinky dresses and expertly displayed cleavage and just a general objective awareness of self that Bulma was definitely not in possession of at the moment. Raditz would NOT complain, if only because it got him very close to their hot friends. Raditz, if he actually used his noggin (though he tried not to), could understand the appeal of Bulma for Vegeta, because she was novel, fresh, real, and frank and didn't take any of his shit. On paper, it seemed like it shouldn't work, but Vegeta'd need his woman to be like a damned rubix cube to stick around this long. He could see how she would interest a driven, rude professional confined to a glossy world.

In that way, Vegeta had been like a virgin before he made it with Bulma; the man had never cared for or made love to a woman before Bulma'd swept in, and the thought made Raditz giggle. But he'd always thought Bulma was...well, uh, on the shabby side, like a loveable mangy stray cat as Nappa had reflected one morning over waffles, earning a painful kick in the shin from Vegeta, who hadn't even looked up from his plate of eggs and steak to acknowledge it. But Raditz could now literally see that Bulma was  _all_  woman, like, kind of fucking hot under all those baggy, stained clothes, and he finally understood just how a cold-hearted dickhead lawyer might find himself under a woman's thumb, if the thumb were Bulma's. There was nothing quite like a half-naked woman using power tools a few feet away to get the blood flowing from the head…er, to the head, so to speak.

Raditz shook his head, tsk'ing. The schmucks were going to learn a very hard lesson when Vegeta returned, if the dumbass managed to properly apologize and win her back.

AlthooOough, Raditz suspected Bulma wasn't nearly as mad as she let on. Having caught her running her hands along Vegeta's desk during their lunch break, sparse but for a small model VW bus beside his monitor, Raditz sauntered in, breaking the spell.

"Me'thinks you're just putting on a bold face, eh?" He watched her smugly. "You're all hot air when it comes to Vegeta, little lady. Am I right, or am I right?"

But Bulma had just stomped on his toes with her boot before pivoting to leave, successfully ending Raditz's badgering and causing him to fall into Vegeta's office chair and try not to cry with pain.

Raditz checked his watch face once more and finally let everyone know that they could leave. When the crowd had filed out, Raditz and Nappa poked their heads into Vegeta's office, clearing their throats over the shredding of the hacksaw.

Bulma looked up from her safety goggles. Raditz couldn't even complain, given the superb, creamy cleavage rocking in his line of sight just out of time with her sawing.

"We're leaving," Raditz called, waving goodbye.

"Okey doke." The sawing began again, and so did the swinging cleavage.

"It's Friday," he insisted, forcing himself to look at the ground, at the windows, at the ceiling, somewhere, anywhere but her. "Pack up soon and go spend your Friday night doing something more exciting than...this." He waved his hand at the mess.

"Yeah, well," she turned, rummaging in her tool box and giving him a view of her backside, "I have nothing to do tonight, unfortunately. I'll probably just sit on the couch with Scratch and watch bad, 70's kung fu flicks." She straightened and began hammering with built up frustration. "Because my life is devoid of romance," she finished with a snarl, "and I have nothing  _else_  to sit on tonight!"

"Ohhhhh, I'm a dead man," Raditz bemoaned as he forced himself to turn away, eyes pleading at the ceiling. He clapped his hands together in prayer as he strode toward the front door, Nappa following doggedly behind. "Vegeta, get back soon and make up, or I can't promise my man parts won't betray us."

"She's not my type," Nappa bumbled disinterestedly from behind him, deep baritone bouncing around in the front doorway. "I like big women with less of a mouth on them."

"I really need to get laid," Raditz lamented as the front door shut behind them, the cold breeze slicing through his coat, "because a big mouth ordering me around sounds really hot right now."

It wasn't for lack of trying. Raditz put his collar up against the wind and tamped out a cigarette from his pack, crouching behind Nappa to light his cigarette and using him as a shield from the buffeting wind. He drew in smoke, and then exhaled with a sigh. Raditz had been putting even more effort than usual wooing any girl that paid him attention when he went out. He was just that goddamned desperate, and even still, he just wasn't having any luck. At first, he'd thought none of the women were his type (plainspeak: unimpressed by him), and those that  _were_  d.t.f. always threw up glaring red flags, like the one who requested her favorite country music song as the song they danced to at their wedding,  _minutes_  after shagging for the first time. Raditz might have been clinically dead for a second, as he got dressed and grabbed his jacket in a blackout and hadn't come to until he was a few blocks from his place, blinking in front of an Indian food place.

With Fasha breezing into his life again like a goddamned ill omen, he'd been reminded of the good shit in relationships that he couldn't get from casual encounters: of the good company, of the good food, of the regular blow jobs. She had him realizing that he'd been nursing a hole in his heart all these years, and Bulma's setting a good example of a committed woman was, like, setting off his biological clock or something.

Fucking on occasion and Nappa's company just weren't cutting it anymore.

And that's why Raditz had resorted to online dating.

For a reason Raditz didn't want to examine, he was  _really_  embarrassed that it had come down to this, in the same way that he was ashamed that he typed with only two fingers at like ten words per minute.

"Hey, buddy, what's the scoop tonight?" Raditz looked back at Nappa, who lumbered beside him, scaring passersby.

"Let's go for burgers at Sully and Sons."

"Nah, I want something classier." Raditz blew smoke. He wanted the privacy that had to be paid for in case his real sad love life gave him the sniffles after a few glasses of whiskey. "Look, I'm going to Blue Room. Gonna drink some high-class cham-pag-nay. Gonna holla at some classy ladies. Gonna throw some shade at their boyfriends before getting ran off. I'll meet you back at home, okay? Don't wait up."

Raditz turned away from the drooping disappointment on Nappa's face.

"And shave your goddamned fu manchu. You look like an idiot."

"Fuck you!" Nappa called half-heartedly.

Raditz smirked, hailing him with a small wave and walking in the opposite direction, cutting through the cold, shoulders tensing around his ears.

Raditz wasn't all there as the hostess at Blue Room seated him at the bar, didn't really pay attention to what kind of drink he ordered, but sighed wistfully, leaning back in his bar stool and watching the couples in the restaurant with a look of reproach.

The possibility for a life full of happy-spunky-love had been stolen by another woman's games of power and then totally severed from him in a car crash. And so, Raditz deeply, truly,  _profoundly_  felt that Fasha was a soul sucking succubus b-word—no, a c-word—but he needed to ask Bulma if it was okay to call a woman a c-word even if she was a total fucking life ruining nutjob.

Now what? Raditz just suddenly, like, wanted stability, and he wanted it now. He wanted a woman who put some fire in his loins and in his brain and stuff. He wanted a woman like Bulma, and he wanted to be all stupid about her like Vegeta.

But where did he find a woman like Bulma? The hardware store? Did he stand around topless, wearing a tool belt, and wait for the horny, handy women to claw at him?

Raditz needed to ask Bulma if that would work next time he saw her.

Where did one meet women at his age?

He turned slightly to glance sidelong at the figure that had slid into the bar stool next to him, and did a double take.

Pale blonde hair curled at her chin in a sleek bob, her back proud and straight, her long, lithe legs crossed before her. Cornflower blue eyes slid in his direction, and then back to the bar. She was all perfectly poreless skin and sharp bone structure like a model, her gray silk camisole puckering slightly open at her chest as she removed her suit jacket.

"Buy me a drink," she ordered flatly.

"Motherfucking Juuhachigou." Raditz watched her, shaking his head.

"Okay," he quickly agreed, waving the bartender over animatedly.

* * *

Vegeta had excused himself from his home with poorly disguised unease. He congratulated himself for at least waiting until Tarble and his wife seemed comfortably settled in, but then, shamefully, he had bolted. The past week as Tarble's houseguest had wound Vegeta tight, no matter how discomfited it made Vegeta to admit that something as insignificant as just hanging out with someone could chafe him. And now that he was home, he could funnel that social anxiety straight into the other difficulty he was rather embarrassed to be facing: his good standing with Bulma.

He jumped into the Ghia and barreled down the highway as fast as the little 1600 cubic centimeters engine could go, the mono speakers blasting tinny music. He drummed his fingers on the leather steering wheel and tried to tamp down his panic.

When he'd left her snoring after the 5 am call from his private investigator, scribbling her a note and paying the bill before jumping into a cab to chase after his father's demons, he'd felt confident that she'd understand his situation. After the first few days scrambling after leads and rushing around North City, jumping from taxi to taxi, he hadn't much room to think of anything but his months-long objective, now substantiating and near: sifting through all the dirt on his father and unleashing it in court. Vegeta had waded neck deep into his father's shadowy personal life, and the product hadn't just been several clandestine affairs with moneyed women, each shrewdly chosen, but a sibling—a joyful, optimistic, willowy younger half-brother. And so he'd taken another day to reel. Tarble had welcomed Vegeta into his home, admitting graciously that he knew he was a product of an affair. He had heard only that his father was a big deal in West City and already had a legitimate heir, but Tarble hadn't ever wanted to intrude on the busy father and son, accepting his lot in life congenially. Vegeta couldn't fathom it. They'd gotten to know each other, inasmuch as Vegeta could be personable and talk about himself and accept all Gure and Tarble's warm overtures of friendship. It hadn't been until the following day that Vegeta had gotten a chance to lay back in his bed, alone with his thoughts, and reach compulsively for his phone for the one person he now wanted more than the dark truths his father had left like trailing bread crumbs behind him.

He wanted his woman. But his woman wasn't picking up the phone.

It didn't take long for Vegeta to realize it was deliberate.

And even as he grit his teeth, and even as he turned over and over in the guest bed, sleepless and lonesome, he couldn't hold it against her for long.

He'd fucked up.

Again.

_I warned her,_  he thought bitterly, and grit his teeth _. I don't_ do _relationships. I'm a man without the time or patience to capitulate to a woman's every contrary whim._ Which Vegeta had taken to breast in retaliation after the next few days of Bulma-imposed isolation. But his puffed up conviction had unraveled, and quick.

When he'd texted Raditz to inform him that he'd be back by the weekend, he'd tentatively, gingerly asked how Bulma seemed to be doing, and immediately regretted it, red faced with shame. It would be admitting to Raditz that they hadn't spoken, and it filled him with bald humiliation. But Raditz had simply let him know Bulma was pissed, but otherwise, all seemed well.

_This can be fixed,_  he'd told himself.

And if she wasn't at his place on a Friday evening, there was only one other place she'd be.

At her shop.

His leather loafers crunched gravel as his measured strides took him closer to the front door of B's Dubs…

But she wasn't there. The front door was locked, unyielding, no matter how much he jiggled it with increasing frustration.

Vegeta ran his hand over his face in exasperation. Anxiety was curling in the pit of his stomach, like a child's snake firework that only grew longer and thicker and blacker with every breath.  _You were gone for over two weeks,_  he reflected.  _Even you know that two weeks without a word warrants a steep price._

What if that was the last rejection Bulma was willing to take?

With no small amount of mortification next quickly swallowed by desperation, Vegeta scrolled through his cell phone contacts and put the phone to his ear, fidgeting and pacing toward the back of the garage as he waited, a pained look on his face.

"Hello?" Goku's woman asked curiously.

Vegeta took a breath, pacing, and forced his back to straighten. "Hello. This is Vegeta." His voice was uncertain even to his ears.

"Oh. It's  _you_." Chi Chi's voice grew chilly.

After Vegeta failed to immediately respond, there was a huff on the other end.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him that Bulma's best friend would be every bit as self-assured as she was. Vegeta felt himself flinch at her tone, and then get frustrated at himself for being such a pushover around these women.

"I've returned to West City. I was just"—his voice trailed, and he cleared his throat—"I was hoping you could tell me where Bulma is at the moment. She wasn't at my condo, and she's not at her shop."

"Oh, you'd like to know, would you?" Chi Chi's voice was oozing condescension. It was clearly no question now that she didn't approve of him. "You're wondering why she isn't on her knees at your doorstep, wasting away as she waits for you, huh?!"

Vegeta's teeth ground, but he held back, intent on both getting the information and, well, proving to Bulma's unfortunate friend that he was…contrite.

"I'd like to apologize," he assured her through clenched teeth, "but I need to meet with her, first."

"Who said she wants to see you?" She harped.

Vegeta felt something like regret and self-loathing chill him even as he heated at her tone.

"Maybe you don't deserve her. What do you say to that?" Chi Chi was on a roll now. He thought he could hear Goku distantly trying to reason with her and pull the phone away, and then cry "Ow!" as the woman presumably bat him away. "Maybe she got fed up with you when you didn't call, didn't write, and she wized up and realized there were better men in the world, huh? Maybe I could give you the address of the place she's meeting another man right now. And maybe I won't."

Something sank in his chest even as he trembled with anger. He couldn't trust that he wouldn't say something to the demented woman that wouldn't get him in trouble with Bulma, so he clenched his jaw to keep it from escaping.

"You're a jerk, and you don't deserve her! So there!"

There was a dull silence that followed which he registered as being hung up on.

Vegeta put his phone carefully back into his trench coat pocket.

And he rolled up his sleeve.

And slammed his fist down into the pile of scrap beside the garage door, glass shattering in protest as it split his knuckles.

He was made of very base desires. He wanted to beat the shit out of someone. He wanted to fight recklessly and abandon the hard-won future, heart beating its drum for only the moment his fist made contact with flesh. He wanted to feel his knuckles sink into someone's jaw, see the blood drip between his swollen fingers. And he lusted for someone's own fist to smash into his own cheek, his body skating backwards with the force of the blow, giving up his life to gravity, to fate, and relishing it, every second in the air taut with desperate gratitude.

He took several shallow breaths, pacing back and forth before sliding back into his car seat. He couldn't go back home. He felt like a top, spinning frenziedly, and he'd only begin to spin more wildly before crashing to a stop. Couldn't go home to face his foundling half-brother; Tarble would want to talk about feelings, and Vegeta knew intrinsically that Tarble was not made of the same chewy, loathsome, hard-hearted stuff Vegeta was. Vegeta would only poison the younger man with the vile taint their father had seeded inside him. He needed to be around a man who could swap a few punches and drink these two weeks into the trash can of oblivion. At 6 pm on a Friday night, he knew where two of them might be.

* * *

Bulma hummed, mixing the spackling in time to the music before slapping it onto the spanking new wall with her palette knife. She filled in the drywall seams with the mud, her voice rising to belt out the chorus. 7 o'clock on a Friday night and only the janitor had surprised her tonight, freezing once he spotted her before nodding nervously in hello, then swiftly replacing the trash bags and bolting for the door. She had that effect on people.

"Raditz owes me big time," she grumbled, blowing hair out of her face. She was covered in her fair share of drywall dust and mud, mostly because she was clumsy and  _not_  as an indicator of her capabilities. The electric nail gun was shrill in the empty office as she closed up the wall like King Tut's tomb. She'd reset the modem, too, and now Raditz's problem was fixed. If she weren't so annoyed to have had to leave work early two days in a row to play handywoman, she'd call him up and demand he take her out for a drink as repayment. That was a legit way to end a shitty few weeks, she reasoned.

All there was to do now was wait for the mud to dry, and then sand and paint. Bulma wiped her hands on her overalls, the denim slinking low on her waist. If she waited for Monday like she wanted to, it would mean she'd be out a couple more hours at the shop, and Suke wasn't good for anything, unfortunately, except taking orders and patching flats. Better than nothing, and she was grateful for him, but he was no master mechanic. She ought to just come in tomorrow morning and finish to make the best use of her time. Raditz at least had had the mind to leave the keys on his desk.

"Well, no one can say I'm not good for something," she complained to herself, bending to pick up her tools and toss them into her bag.

She squinted as a bead of sweat dripped into her eye, and wiped at her face with the back of her hand. She was disgusting, and she made a face down at herself.

She turned the dial down on the radio and felt for her phone in her back pocket. She ignored the blinking light and headed straight for Raditz's number. Whatever it was, it could wait until after she got blisteringly drunk with her sassiest bff Raditz.

He picked up on the third ring. "What are you calling me for," he urged into the speaker with barely veiled irritation. "I've got a really strong mack going on tonight and a phone call from a woman's gonna ruin my game!"

Bulma paced slowly around the room. "You're really gonna get it next time I see you. Bam. Boom. Straight to the moon."

She heard him sigh. "Has the wall been repaired?"

"It's done." She chewed her fingernail absently. "All that's left is to paint. Trying to decide if I'll come in tomorrow or Monday to do it."

"Look, if you let me go so I can holler at this fine looking female that just left to go to the powder her nose or whatever, I'll come in tomorrow afternoon and help you do it. But for god's sake, let me go."

"Oh, hell no. You owe me a drink." Bulma reached into her back pocket to grab her pack of cigarettes, fumbling. "I sure am thirsty tonight," she whined, and then tried her best to sweeten the deal, teeth gleaming with a teasing grin. "I am in dire need," she crooned, "of what  _you_  can give me, sir."

She heard Raditz scoff. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were coming on to me."

Bulma winked, grinning. "Buy me a drink tonight, and maybe you'll get lucky." She snickered as Raditz floundered, and against his better judgment, he whispered, "Can't I have you  _both_  tonight?"

Just as Bulma was about to roar with surprised laughter, her cell was ripped from her hand and she was face to face

with a very,

_very,_

angry Vegeta.

She stared at him in astonishment.

"Vegeta?" She asked, patting him as if he might be a mirage or a figment of her overactive imagination.

He ended the call forcefully with his thumb and then tossed her phone onto his desk behind her.

And then he yanked her to his chest by her wrist, holding her wrist hostage.

"Are you  _already_  seeing someone else?" He issued dangerously.

She blinked. "Huh?"

"I'm gone for two weeks," he glared down at her, his chest heaving against her own as his face screwed with bridled emotion, "and you've already jumped into another man's arms?"

Bulma watched him with confusion, a sliver of anxiety curling in her belly at his aggressiveness before a smarting anger descended on her.

"And what if I did, huh?" She jerked her hair out of her face sharply, scowling. "What's it to you? You left me high and dry. I have a right to date other men after that stunt. So what are you going to do about it?"

She'd expected a look of peevishness, a passive understanding of wrongdoing which would eclipse his face as she told him like it was and gave him the what-for.

Instead, Vegeta yanked her close and crashed his mouth into hers, prying her mouth open with his tongue as he crushed her to his chest.

All thoughts flew from the cuckoo's nest of her head, and she squirmed in his grip. He only held her tighter, which caused her to beat at his arms helplessly.

It wasn't until he sunk one of his hands into the hair bunched at the nape of her neck and tugged her head back, mouth releasing hers even as he cruelly held her hair hostage with his fist, that he met her panicked eyes with his own weighted gaze.

"Have you given up on me already?" He whispered without loosening his grip, his breath hitting her lips.

Frankly, she was having a hard time understanding English at the moment. Why was he angry? She wondered dumbly. So he was home now? What was going on? Should she be frightened, should she feel unsafe?

...She didn't, though. Her misgivings were fading, replaced by something else, something throbbing and out of the reach of control, something like...

Desire.

"Don't touch me if I don't want you to touch me," she demanded, voice raw. She met his gaze intensely, daring him to refuse.

His face hovered above hers for a moment, but then he released her, his hand drawing slowly out of her hair as he moved to step back and give her space.

This time, she grabbed his wrist.

"Only touch me when I want you to touch me," she ordered, and watched him sharply as she tugged him close again, pulling him with her as she backed up until the back of her knees hit his desk. "And I want you to touch me."

Vegeta was watching her, suffused by some kind of molten, snapping thing, but it no longer alarmed her but thrilled her, and she drew him in between her knees with her fists in his shirt, yanking him down to her face. "You left me. For two weeks."

"You're already fucking someone else," he chomped out, but then his head dipped and his tongue traced her lower lip. She let her head loll back on her shoulders and arched her back in invitation, and Vegeta took advantage, blazing a path up her neck, the tip of his tongue rounding the curve of her ear. He suddenly gripped her hips and yanked her closer to the edge of the desk, and she could feel the rock hard jut of him against her, the surreal reality of them joined like this after weeks of emptiness.

"But you still get hard for me," she countered, mouth quirking dangerously, and this time she yanked Vegeta's head back by the hair at the nape of his neck and set her mouth to his strong, thick neck, earning a small moan from the throat under her lips.

"I want to fuck you," he whispered raw and desperate from under her mouth. "I want to bury myself in you," he said into her ear. "Now. Right now."

"You're gonna have to beg me," she taunted.

Instead, he ripped the overalls from her hips and down her legs, where they caught on her boots. He didn't blink as he tossed her back onto his desk and buried his face between her legs, shaking his head back and forth against her possessively. Her mouth parted and an anguished pant escaped, and she ran her fingers through his hair as he sucked her into his mouth unapologetically.

She gathered what remained of her wits and pulled him from her by his hair. "You didn't beg me," she growled, huskily. "You didn't ask permission."

Vegeta squared his jaw.

Slowly, he straightened, his lips gleaming in the light, a five o'clock shadow darkening his face. He pulled her boots off one by one without dropping her gaze, and then drew her overalls off her legs, denim slipping from bare skin.

Then he pulled back and reached over his head to grab his shirt collar, tugging it up and over the crest of his thick hair, like a curtain drawing upwards over the taut ridges of his abs. She palmed them greedily, straightening on the edge of his desk before stealing a kiss once his head was free of his shirt.

He kissed her deeply, ravenously, and she kissed him back with the force of all the need and doubt that had curdled inside her since he'd left.

"Don't you leave me again," she demanded against his lips, snatching his chin in between her fingers and forcing him to look her in the eye.

"Never again," he promised in a whisper against them, pressing her close with one hand as he undid his belt and zipper smoothly, eyes trailing to her lips. They kissed cravenly, wet and hard and demanding, both refusing to yield. A moment without time, just mouth to mouth, hot and desperate and connected profoundly, until he slowly pulled away, sucking and trailing his tongue up her neck. She barely registered it as he eased her back against the length of the desk, as his mouth moved over her hard nipples under her thin shirt. She felt his fingers then, at her thighs, and her hips yawned open instinctually.

She grabbed him by his hard forearm and drew him close so that they pressed chest to chest. She watched him from under lowered lids. "Prove that I'm yours," she insisted, their noses brushing the others.

He stilled, watching her, breathing unevenly as he considered it. And then he slid one finger down between her already wet lips, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth.

He watched her with black, molten eyes in the half darkness of his office, drawing his finger out of her just so before plunging it back in. Just one finger, tortuously, not quite filling her up. She grit her teeth and tried to meet his gaze. He eased it back in again, and watched her devilishly, head bowed.

"May I?" He finally asked quietly.

She watched him, gaze running leisurely over his features, her blue eyes murky in the half light. "Yes," she finally answered.

And then he straightened, and his tongue lapped at her own, and she wrapped her legs around his bare hips, his jeans riding low as he pressed against her and sunk in to the hilt.

The waited a moment, breathing unevenly, resting their foreheads on the other's shoulder.

Finally, she raised her head heavily and put her lips to his ear. "Don't stop." An admission, whispered firmly, and Vegeta answered by cradling her head in his hands and driving home into her.

* * *

Bulma blew smoke out the cracked window languidly, cooly watching the traffic out the windshield.

They hadn't really spoken since finishing on his desk. Vegeta had helped her find her clothes, and she'd tossed him his shirt, and then they'd locked up in the hush of the night.

He'd asked if she'd like to go for a drive, his voice rumbling in the cool air, and she'd just nodded, fishing for her pack of cigarettes.

She rested her head against the headrest, listening to the Ghia's motor churn, the dim chatting on the radio.

She finished her cigarette, flicking it out the window, the embers spraying in the wind. Slouching in the bucket seat, Bulma watched the road roll under the wheels in the silence.

Finally, as if connected by a string, her head rolled to the side to watch Vegeta, who was already watching her under long eyelashes with a relaxed, predatory claim. They stared at one another for a long moment, before Vegeta flicked his own rare cigarette out the window, rolling it up once the cloud of smoke had escaped. He didn't fidget, necessarily, but reality was slowly creeping its way into the languorous, post-sex haze. There was the slightest indication that he was working up to something: a tic at his temple, his jaw working slightly.

But he surprised her. "Do you want to come home with me, or am I dropping you off at your place?"

She watched him, slack in the seat; just watched him, his sharp profile, the incremental tightening of his jaw.

"I thought your place was my place," she finally stated, tonelessly.

Their eyes met again, but this time, his were alive with some feeling, as if he hadn't expected her to say it.

"If you want to stay with me," he began cautiously, his hands moving restlessly on the wheel as he turned his gaze back to the road, "then I'd like to warn you that I have company."

This time, her eyes widened. "What kind of company?" She asked cautiously.

It felt wrong to be so tight lipped after becoming so close in the dark on his desk, but there was an inescapable distance between them again that they had to bridge carefully or simply leave gaping, unfulfilled.

Vegeta's mouth thinned, and he watched traffic with an unreadable expression. "Family," he finally said.

Bulma opened her mouth to ask who—as far as she knew, his estranged father was all he had—but her mouth closed on the question. Instead, she asked, "Will they be up when we get there?"

Vegeta shifted in his seat, contemplating. "Probably not," he informed her, before glancing at her. "You're probably safe to run to the room without having to go through introductions looking freshly fucked."

She smiled, youthful, into her lap, and his own lips twitched when he glanced over to see the blush sweep her cheeks.

He reached for her hand, and she held her palm out tentatively. He curled his fingers between her own and pressed his fingertips into her palm.

"Please come home with me tonight."

Her face fell at the solemn overture, and she looked up at him.

He watched her, eyes pleading.

It was the first time she'd ever seen a look of passiveness and fear from him writ plainly for her to see.

She squeezed his hand.

"Yeah, sure," she finally said, looking back out the window to hide a warbly smile, with a joy leaping from her breast.


End file.
